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TO 

WlI^LIAM CULLEN BrYANT: 
AS 

A T R I B U T K 

OF THB 

HIGH ESTEEM IN WHICH HIS GENIUS IS HELD 
BY THE AUTHOR, 

AND 

WHICH HAS PLACED HIM 

IN THR 

VAN OF AMERICAN POETS, 

THIS V L U M E 

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE/ 



Not tvei-.v poet is as fortunate as l.ord Byrou v/as, who is report- 
ed to have said, that he went to sleep one night, and on waking the 
next morning found himself famous— for even he was so severely 
handled by the critics, that they stung him into a poet. Keats, than 
whom a finer, and more original genius has never lived, was killed 
by a criticism. Tennyson, perhaps the world's most imaginative 
baid, had his second volume covered with the dust of ten long years 
before he obtained any extended notoriety. Wordsworth was an 
old man when the world lauded him with the title of its greatest 
metaphysical poet, and so on through the whole round of the poet- 
ical world. If these — along side of whose brilliant eiforts, mine are 
like the faint glimmerings of a rush-light, in comparison with the 
effulgence of the sun— found the road to fame paved with such diffi- 
culties, as almost to make a seraph's heart despair, it would be sheer 
foUy for the author, to come before the reader, for the purpose of 
securing a reputation with tiie annexed fugitive, and unpretending 
effusions. 

With Edgar Allan Poe, he feels poetry to be with liira a passion; 
consequently he has not made it so much cf a study, as a means 
of delightful recreation ; a something upon which he has almost 
spontaneously poured out the overflowings of his soul; hence, ho 
is not blind to the fact, that the verses to which he has given pub- 
licity, lacking the touches of an experienced and masterly hand, 
and written, many of them, under the impulses of the moment, are 
defective. Yet he begs the critic, to whom he has given fresh ma- 
terial for literary persecution, to spare him this time, and if he can- 
not find anything-in this humble volume which will recommend it- 
self favorably to his notice, to pass silently over its contents, and 
leave the author to enjoy the gratification which the i)ul)lication of 
the same may Iiring him. 



VI 
The poems were ail written between the ages of fourteen and 
twenty-one, with the exception of "'The Author's Introduction ;" 
and the three which precede "Lines on a Coquette;" these were 
composed after the author had reached his majority. The poems 
are dated, as far as can be ascertained, in accordance with tlie 
years in which they were written. 

Baltimore. Oct. 1870. 



INDEX TO POEMS. 

I'AC.E. 

THE rOET"s TASK, . , . . . 1^ 

WRITTEN IX 1863. 

A THUNDER STORM, . • • ^5 

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE, . . l6 

WRITTEN IN 1864. 

I THINK OF THEE, . . -I? 

CHANGED, . . . . . 1 8 

LINES TO ADA, . . . .20 

WRITTEN IN 1867. 

THE SPIRIT LAND, . . . 2p 

AFLOAT, . . . . • 22 

TRUE PHILANTHROPY, . . ,. __.24. 

THE suppliant's CRY, . . 26 

TO MY LOVE, . . . -29 

THE BRIDE AND GROOM, . . 3* 

THE GRAVE, . . . -33 

TIME, . . . . -35 

THE YOUNG MAN's SOLILOQUY, . . 39 

MORNING. . . . . .42 



Ylll 

r A E 

THE FEAR OF DEATH, . . -44 

DAYBREAK, .... 4/ 

THE VrESTERN HUNTER, . . . 48 j 

WRITTEN' IX 186S. 

hope's futurity, . . -53 

ACTION, . . . . . 54 

the timid lover, . . • 5^ 

mutability, . . . -59 

the poet s reverie, . . .66 

drov;ned, . . . . 72 

THE christian's HOPE, . . -74 

FAIRYLAND, . . . . 7^ 

WAITING, . . . . .81 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, . . 85 

THE DESERTED CHAMBER, . . 87 

THE DYING DAY, . . . 9 1 

THE SPIRIT OF THE BEAUTIFUL, . 92 

THE SPIRIT OF SUBLIMITY, . . 93 

THE RETROSPECT, . . -94 

MARABELLA, . . . 96 

DREAMLAND, . . . . lOO 

A REQUIEM FOR THE DYING YEAR, . 103 

A SUMMER morning's RAMBLE, • ^05 



IX 

PAOB. 

THE DYING POET, . . . IO7 
LINES WEITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM, I I 1 

THE DEPARTURE, . . . .112 

THE RETURN, . . . II3 

WIUTTKX IX 1869. 

uUR WALK, . . . • JJ5 

THE lover's serenade. . . HJ 

NIGHT, . . . . .119 

SONNET, (the lake,) . . . 121 

IMAGINATION, . . . .121 

A JUNE CAROL. . . . 1 25 



TVv'ILIGHT MEMORIES, 
THE FOREST GRAVE, 



126 
128 



A SEPTEMBER EVENING, . . .133 

ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP, . . 135 

NOVEMBER, . . . . .13^ 

WRITTKX LV IS70 

SPACE, . . . .139 

A SUMMER IDYL, . . . I42 

THE ISLAND, . . . -^44 

SYLVANDER AND LUClNffA, . ' 1 47 

"thought, . . . • ^5^ 

A forest SKETCH, . . • - 54 



A PASTORAL SCENE, . . -157 

TEUTII, . . . . .158 

THE TRUE HERO, . . . 161 

THE lover's retreat, . . 165 

WRITTEX BY I. IIEXCK. 

LIKES ON A coquette, . . \f'- 

WRITTEN BY JOSEni il. HEXCK. 

AUTUMNAL MUSINGS, . . . 167 

TO A DEPARTED ONE, . . . 168 



The ^uthoi^^s Introduction 



THE POET'S TASK. 



I would build me a splendid verse ; 

I would frame me a lofty rhyme ; 
I would weave me a lay the world might rehearse, 

'Mid the far oif halls of Time. 

But what shall I sing of, pray. 

That a fadeless wreath may twine 
Around my forehead, when I am gray. 

As a pledge that Fame is mine ? 

Shall I sing of field and grove. 

And the music of bird and breeze ? 

Shall I murmur the beauty and grace of love. 
Till men are ravished with these ? 

'Shall I breathe of war's alarms. 

The stir and din of strife ? 
Shall I warble of youth and its rainbow charms. 

Or muse upon death in life ? 

'Twas thus while I sought to strike 

From my lyre a deathless song, 
A voice so sweet, that it sounded like 

The music of Aidenn's throng ; 



12 

Whispered to my faint heart : 

"If thou wouldst wreathe thy name. 

With flowers that grow from the world apart. 
In Poesy's field of fame ; 

"Aspire no longer to win 

Earth's plaudits with thy refrain ; 
But write thy thoughts, as they drop from the pen, 

On the heart of thy fellow-man. 

**Let Truth illumine thy song. 

And call to the aid of thy muse. 
The good, and the great, and the wise ones who 
throng 

Time's grand old avenues. 

**Bid Selfishness drop her mask 

From the hearts of thy fellows. Sing 

How sweetly Love can fulfil each task. 
Which the coming years may bring. 

"Make glad with thy hopeful lay. 

The mourner, who wails o'er the bier 

Of his loved and lost, till heaven's sweet ray 
Shall dry on his cheek the tear. 

'*0 ! breathe with thy stirring strain 

Into hearts now cold and dead. 
That they upon Life's great battle plain. 

May stand in the fathers' stead. 

"Sing of the grand and the good ; 

That action ennobles life ; 
That the heroes of earth are those who have stood, 

Where Error and Truth are at strife. 



13 

"That man should never man prize. 

For his lands or titles or pelf; 
But he is — no matter how homely his guise — 

To be valued because of himself. 

''That the Right is only right. 

When its message is one of peace; 
That Hate with the years shall evanish from sight. 

But Love with the years shall increase. 

"Seek ever to emulate 

The life of the great Nazarene, 
By striving thy brother to elevate 

Above the pollutions of sin. 

"Forget thyself in thy lay. 

Whilst singing for others ; thus 
The world when thou shalt have passed away. 

Will crown with its laurels thy muse. 

"And thy strains shall charm the age. 

And men as they listen long. 
Shall say : *what a glory gilds his page. 

How sweet is this poet's song !' " 



POEMS 



A THUNDER STORM. 

When the soft hour 
Of sunset lingers o'er a gazing world. 
Season of mystic joy, that fills with awe 
The soul of him who gazes on its bloom ; 
When the light shades of twilight close around, 
xAnd Night approaches with her ebon train. 
Robed in a wreath of gloom, there may be heard 
The deep-toned thunder's roll, calling his force 
To action, the artillery of heav^en. 

Now the forked lightning plays in fitful gleams 
Athwart the dark expanse, and murky clouds 
Envelop earth within their sable folds. 
And the loud rattling of the tempest's wheels 
Foretells its near approach : 

Gloomy and dark 
Rises the storm-king from his ocean hom.e. 
And weighed with grief, the all-repentant clouds 
Drop from their heavy lids a flood of tears. 

The storm still rages. Ever and anon 
The angry god* hurls his hot thunderbolts 
Upon the trembling earth. But as the hours 
Press in their onv^-ard march the starlit throne 

^Jupiter. 



16 

Of dusky midnight, from the ragged skirts 
Of the stained concave, Cynthia shows her horn ; 
And at the unveiled glories of her face. 
Mute are the raging elements : the winds 
Soothed down to peace, give to the lip of Night 
A breath of balm, and with her untaught lays. 
Warm gushing from bright Nature's dewy lap. 
Sweet Philomel beguiles the wandering swain. 



THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE. 

When first the sun illumes his eastern steep. 

Or sinks in glory 'neath the western hill ; 
When in the noon the fragrant breezes sleep. 

And scarce is heard the m.urmuring songster's 
trill. 

And all is calm and beautiful and still. 
And deepest burns within the vault its hue. 

Then are ye loveliest, forest, vale and rill. 
And glorious your garb ; ah ! cold and few 
Are they who then can look with hearts unmoved 
on you. 

Fit haunts in which for pure of earth to dwell ; 

Fit scenes on which for pure of earth to gaze. 
And fitting hour to muse, in bower or dell. 

Or farther, in the labyrinthian maze 

Of tangled thickets, where the shy deer graze. 
Or squirrel nimbly leaps from tree to tree. 

Amid the wrecks of years, through which the 
rays. 
The softened rays of sun steal down, a free 
And lucid stream of light, rejoicing in its glee. 



17 

Through clovered meadows mend thy laggard pace. 
Lift thy dazed sight to sun-reflecting snows 

That cap the hoary mount ; around its base. 

See passing shadows which the sunlight throws. 
Chequer the umbrage of the woods, wiiere glows 

Mid over-arching trees, the stream, whose wave 
Enshrines the azure of the heavens, and flows 

Onward to where the ocean billows rave. 

And finds in their broad depths, a calm untroubled 
grave. 

These are the robes of Nature, bright and fair ; 

Fit dress for her, v/hose every motion tends 
To increase the gazer's awe sublime, w^here'er 

His feet may roam, whether his pathway wends 

Bv the lone brook, whose herb-stained margin 
lends 
Its hue to v/aves it drinks, or finds her v/here 

The eternal thunder of the cataract rends 
The solemn silence of the slumbering air ; 
Seek her where'er he will, her beauties follow there. 



I THINK OF THEE. 

At morn, at noon, and close of day. 
Both when the sun doth rise and set, 

A traveler o'er life's dusty way. 
Thy image I can ne'er forget. 

'Tis interwoven with my heart. 

And never, never may depart. 

In midnight dreams, methinks I feel 
Thy dewy lips pressed soft to mine ; 

Upon the breeze thy loved tones steal 

In fond, low whisperings, "only thine !" 

But with the night these dreams depart. 

And leave me with an aching heart. 



18 

Yet still thy form to me is dear. 

Still Hope essays to paint thee true ; 

Thy fairy laughter oft I hear. 

And seem to catch a transient view 

Of thy sweet face in Fancy's glass ; 

Alas ! that dreams like these m^ust pass. 

I think of thee! I think of thee! 

When Morn unfurls her standard bright ; 
r think of thee ! I think of thee ! 

When fades from heaven the golden light ; 
Thou'rt present, day and night with me. 
And night and day I think of thee ! 



CHANGED. 



Once did I love the drum's deep roll. 

And started when the cannon pealed. 
Whose thrilling thunder lired my soul. 

Whilst arming for the battle field ; 
Aye ! I have often led the van. 

Within the thickest of the fight. 
And spurned the heaps of reeking slain. 

To follow in the foe's base flight. 
And screamed exulting to the wind. 
To see my com.rades left behind. 

I too have loved to roam the deep. 

To wander o'er the crested wave ; 
When waked the hurricane from sleep. 

Have laughed his awful might to brave. 
And struggled o'er the sea-washed deck. 

Or climbed the reeling mast, till I 
Became a portion of the wreck. 

Afraid of naught beneath the sky; 



19 

And clapped my hands in very glee. 
To feel it sink beneath the sea ! 

How often in the wild woods straying, 

I've lingered till the Night came down. 
And watched the lightning's distant playing. 

And viewed the sky's increasing frown. 
And caught the growling thunders crash 

With wild delight, and heard in joy 
The rain upon the foliage dash ; — 

With not a living creature nigh 
To share with me the tempest's might. 
Have watched till broke the morning's light ! 

Yea ! I have wandered through the gloom 

Of Enipires, fallen to decay ; 
Beneath whose ruins lies their tomb. 

O'er whom the stranger now holds sway. 
How mournful seems their destiny ! 

Their thrones have crumbled to the earth. 
And I have stood a mourner nigh. 

To weep the age of fallen worth. 
Great God ! and must it ever be ? 
Shall L}-rants always rule the free ? 

I've stood beneath the Parthenon, 

And gazed upon it's ancient pride ; 
I've roamed the plains of Marathon, 

And journeyed by the -^gean side ; 
I've climbed thy brow Acropolis, 

And mused thy Attic grandeur o'er ; 
And wrapped in dreams of saddening bliss. 

Have strolled, Thermopylae, on thy shore; 
I've strayed through Greece, I've traveled Rom^e, 
And wept a Nation's present gloom. 



20 

But oh how changed ! war holds for me 

No more its wonted thrill of bliss ; 
I care no more to roam the sea. 

Or gaze on faded loveliness. 
Fair lady, in whose eyes I view 

Love's radiant light that won my heart. 
To thee its every throb beats true. 

And ever will till life depart ! 
Thou art the day-star of my soul. 
Whose fire thy gentle image stole. 



LINES TO J^DA. 

Fair girl ! the luster of thine eye ; 

Thy cheek where sunset's glory burns ; 
Thy face where glow the hues of heaven. 

When back to Earth her god returns ; 
My stricken soul must own their power. 

In Love's delightful meshes caught. 
Whilst rising from mine inmost soul. 

Thy name with trembling sighs is fraught. 

Upon thy bosom's spotless snow. 

What untold bliss to lie reclined. 
And pour into thy listening ear. 

The love that burns my tortured mind. 
Ah yes ! I love thee wildly well ! 

Without thee life is naught but pain. 
But once restored to thy embrace. 

The Earth is bathed in smiles again. 



THE SPIRIT LAND. 



Where is the spirit land ? ah ! tell me where. 
Thou who hast delved the mines of wisdom long ; 



21 

Beyond the welkin's azure, is it there 

Where floats the eternal melody of song r 

Or does it fill the boundless realms of space. 

Far reaching into blue immensity ; 
Beyond the light of stars, the glimmering trace 

Of distant spheres, which vision scarce can see ? 

Where «'er it be, our eyes are wont to look 

Into the vaulted heavens as though 'tvi^ere there. 

The soul of man her starward journey took. 

When called to leave this nether world of care. 

And there, ah there, how oft with eager gaze, 
I've sought, but vainly sought to pierce the screen. 

That covers with a soft and dreamy haze. 
What I have fancied but have never seen. 

There in those realms so radiantly bright. 
The sound of music ever fills the air ; 

Poured from ten thousand harps, with fresh delight. 
By minstrel angels beautifully fair. 

There forms as bright as orient day, when first 
His crimson blushes paint the eastern sky. 

With all the freshness of the morning, burst 
In gorgeous beauty on the enraptured eye. 

Cool fountains too are there, and flov^^ers whose 
breath 

Comes ever laden with the scent of Spring ; 
O'er whose fair petals thy cold hand, O Death, 

Is never known its blighting dews to fling. 

Bright in its own eternal splendor ; fraught 
With its own tender melodies of love ; 



22 

And far beyond the highest reach of thought. 
Fairer and holier is the world above. 

There to that clime beyond the sunset's tinge. 
Those v/hom I loved in early youth are gone ; 

To mingle where the hues of twilight fringe 
That clime's horizon with the hues of dawn. 

How gladly would my spirit leave this earth, 
And cleave, on wings of light, the ambient air. 

To where yon world uprolls its tide of mirth. 
To greet with joy its loved and lost ones there. 

How often when the sable Night hangs down 
Her jeweled curtains over land and sea, 

I look beyond the Night, to where her frown 
Of darkness is not, nor can ever be : 

Till I can almost fancy from afar, 

I hear the tide of music drawing near ; 

As sadly gazing at some distant star, 

I long for wings to leave this darkened sphere. 

Into the spirit land, no longer sad. 
Ere long my spirit shall exultant rise 

Bright as the day, immeasurably glad ; 

My bosom yearns for rest beyond the skies. 



\ 



AFLOAT. 

Oh it would be to me, 

A strange yet wild delight. 

To roam the waters of the sea. 

The livelong day, the livelong night ! 



23 

No weight of care. 

To feel or fear. 
Whilst floating on its azure breast ; 
Lulled by the soothing sound of ocean's voice to rest. 

I long to be afloat ! 

Out on the foam-crest deep ! 
To sail afar, to lands remote. 

Whose shores the roughening billows sweep ; 
And dash the spray 
In scornful play. 
And court the gale that seaward blows, 
Rocked in old ocean's arms from dawn till day- 
light's close. 

To sail by some fair isle. 

And smell from groves of bloom, — 
Where Nature sheds her softest smile, — 
The citron's faint, but rich perfume ; 
Then from the shore. 
To ply my oar. 
And sink beneath the waves from sight. 
This to my soul would be its zenith of delight. 

And when fair Luna shed 

Her silver o'er the deep, 
I'd gaze in joy, till Irom her bed, 

Aurora, golden-haired, would creep ; 
Beneath whose light, 
The dusky Night 
Would drop into the lap of Day, 
Unwearied still I'd ply my solitary way. 

How do my heart chords cling 
Around thy waves, O sea ! 

3 



24 

Deep as thine own unfathomed spring, 
My soul's affections are for thee ! 
For in thy face. 
From boyhood's days, 
I've gazed in admiration bound ; 
And still would now, as then, upon thv breast be 
found. 



TRUE PHILANTHROPY, 

All noble deeds of men that have their birth 
Within the chambers of the immortal mind; 

All good achieved, possessing moral w^orth ; 

All charitable acts to those- of earth. 

That serve to change their mourning into mirth ; 
All words of kindness that may help to bind 

The bosoms torn by sorrow, not alone 

Rejoice the souls, whom haply they may find 

Sunk deep in woe, but add new pleasure to our 
own. 

**Do unto others as ye would that they 

Should do to you ;" hear what the volume says ; 
Oh that men would be wise in this their day. 
And learn to tread aright in wisdom's way ; 
For have not sin and folly held their sway 

Too long within the breasts, where Love's soft 
rays 
Should shed their mellowing luster ? would we gain 
From heaven's high courts the eternal meed of 
praise. 
Our own souls must be taught to feel for others 
pain. 



25 

Good done to others is not thrown away, 

"For he that giveth lendeth to the Lord ;" 
Not only earthly treasures which decay. 
Or the few short-lived pleasures of to-day, 
Shalt thou receive from Him in turn as pay. 

Purer and holier will be thy reward ; 
The consciousness of having wrought His will. 

Shall give to thee what earth could ne'er afford, 
A soothing sense of jov, whose calm thy breast 
shall fill. 

There is a sacred bliss in doing good. 

Which yields a feast of pleasure to the soul. 
And causes it to feed on heavenly food. 
And scatters flowers along life's rugged road. 
And fructifies the heart ; in whose abode 

Love deigns to spread her heaven-plumed wings, 
and toll 
Her silvery accents to the listening ear ; 

Oh that the whisperings of her voice would roll 
Through every breast that yearns to feel its kind- 
lings there. 

All acts of kindness and all deeds of love. 

That we extend to others, are the means 
By which we raise ourselves and them above 
The common scale of being ; let us move 
No longer then amid the crowds that rove 

The narrow vale of self which only screens 
The light of love and truth from out men's eyes. 

But let us rather seek those higher plains. 
Where heaven's own luster beams, fresh from its 
native skies. 

Know then my soul, this one grand truth, sublime, 
*'To do good, is to get good."' Let these words 



26 

Find in thy depths, throughout all coming time, 

A settled lodgment ; so the genial clime 

Of love shall breathe on thee perennial prime ; 

And grander far than by the might of swords. 
Might shall be given thee to crush the wrong. 

And Error shall be trampled 'mid her hordes. 
And where the curse arose, shall rise the voice of 
song. 



THE SUPPLIANTS CRY. 

Father, at whose command the hills uprose ; 

Who spake, and lo ! the fields were drest in green ; 
The mountains raised their foreheads, where the 
snows 

Of ages past eternally have been; 
O hearken to thy humble suppliant's cry ; 

Lend to my feeble prayer a listening ear ; 
Bend Thou from Thine exalted seat on high. 

And take my soul within Thy fostering care ! 

Cleanse Thou my heart from all the dross of sin ; 

Roll Thou its burden from my heavy breast ; 
Make me, O God, as Thou Thyself art, clean. 

And give unto my being perfect rest ! 
Thou art omnipotent to cleanse and save ; 

Thou art all-mighty, and dost answer prayer; 
Then hear me, ere I sink into the grave. 

And hell's grim monster chains me hopeless there^ 

The gloom of midnight curtains me around; 

Why dost Thou hide the glory of Thy Face ? 
Vainly 1 listen for some cheering sound 

To whisper to my anguished bosom peace ; 



27 

Vainly I look to see Thy radiance stream 

In mellowing splendor from the courts of bliss : 

O let Thine imiage on my darkness gleam. 
And fill me with Thy love ! I crave but this. 

In vain I call : Thou wilt not hear my plea ; 

Faint is my soul beneath its weight of woe ; 
My God, my God, hast Thou forsaken me ! 

Ah wilt Thou not some friendly aid bestow ? 
Has all my supplication been for naught. 

And have I sighed and wept and prayed in vain ? 
Must all the bliss that I so long have sought. 

Forever prove to me a source of pain ? 

Does not the spring-time, after winter's dearth. 

Deck the bare earth with flowers of fairest hue ? 
And springs there not most gorgeously to birth. 

When night has fled, upon the opening view. 
In the red east, the sun's triumphant light ? 

And when the tempest's fiercest rage is spent. 
Do not the day-beams shine serenely bright. 

From the round heavens in crystal beauty sent ? 

Then after this long night of Sorrow's reign. 

In which the stars of Hope refuse to shine. 
Wilt Thou not ease my bosom of its pain. 

And heal this bruised and bleeding heart of mine? 
My winter of Despair has lasted long ; 

The storms of Grief have beat upon me sore ; 
O change my sighing into endless song ; 

Give me to feel Thy love ; I ask no more. 

To Thee of old, the prophets knelt and prayed. 
And sprinkled dust on their uncovered heads ; 

And clad in sackcloth garments, weeping, made 
Sore lamentation for unrighteous deeds : 
3* 



28 

Lo ! in the dust before Thy feet I lie. 

Clad in the robes of self-abasement. Hear! 

O hear ! and send me succor from on high ; 
Tear from my soul the net-work of Despair. 

The weight of sin lies heavy on my breast ; 

Despair's black night is closing me around ; 
My heart is bowed — with grief and woe oppressed ; 

Bowed to the very dust upon the ground. 
Why does the light not break ? Have I not prayed, 

And like the patriarch Jacob, wrestling plead. 
Till from the heavens the stars began to fade. 

And the young Day smiled sweetly overhead ? 

Hast Thou not said. Ask and it shall be given ; 

Knock, I will open Mercy's door to you ? 
Father ! Thou knowest how my soul hath striven 

With Thine, to cause its chords to yearn anew 
For one of thy poor children, who desires 

To feel and know Thee as Thou would 'st be 
known ; 
O flash along my soul's electric wires. 

Some words of comfort from the eternal throne ! 

Sick unto death, my sins a grievous load. 

How do they weigh my sinking spirit down ! 
Each day and every hour, I feel Thy rod 

Press heavily upon me, and the frown 
Of Thy displeasure gathers more severe : 

Great God ! avert the fury of Thine ire ; 
To worship and to love Thee, not to fear 

Thy wrath's dread vengeance, is my soul's desire. 

Perhaps I doubt ; away all doubt and fear ; 

Jesus is God, and God is love ; to those 
Who when in time of trouble call, his car 

Is ever open to receive their woes : 



29 

His soul is touched alike with those of ye 

Who strive to do your Master's will on earth ; 

Members of one grand body, of which. He, 

God is the Head, who wrought your second birth. 

O thought felicitous ! My God, I believe ; 

Help Thou mine unbelief; make me strong in 
Thee. 
Lo ! the clouds flee ; the shadows take their leave ; 

The sun breaks forth in all his brilliancy : 
Thank God ! the morning dawns, the night is o'er. 

And heaven unfolds its glories to my gaze ; 
Filled with its bliss, my spirit longs to soar. 

Where Love's dear self emits its kindling rays. 

O joy ecstatic, pure and undefiled ! 

Is this the peace that floweth like a river ? 
My God's I am. He owns me for his child. 

His seal is stamped upon my brow forever. 
Love glistens in the tears that fill mine eyes ; 

Love penetrates through all my being's frame ; 
Long as I live, her fond endearing ties 

Shall link my spirit to the Saviour's name. 



TO MY LOVE, 



Thy face is fresh and fair, my love. 
As fresh and fair as the hues of dawn ; 

The tresses of thy hair, my love. 

As bright as the sun on the upland lawn. 

When down he showers his golden light. 

And bids the darkness and gloom of Night, 
Begone. 



30 

Thine eyes are blue as the skies, my love. 
And as sweetly soft is their tender hue ; 

Thy cheek's warm blushes arise, my love. 

Like the blushes of Morn to your lover's view, 

When up from the clouds which round him lie. 

Young Day his journey begins on high. 
Anew. 

Thy lips are rosy and red, my love. 
And fragrant as the breath of flowers ; 

Thou hast as dainty a tread, my love. 

As the tread of birds in the myrtle bowers. 

As soft they glide o'er the rustling leaves. 

Which the hand of Summer around them weaves. 
In showers. 

And oh the tones of thy voice, my love. 
Are sweeter to me than music's sound ! 

My bosom is made to rejoice, my love. 

As I hear them breathed on the breezes 'round. 

Like a song that's sung in the hushful night, 

They cause my soul with a strange delight. 
To bound. 

I see thy face in my dreams, my love. 

Bright as the sunset, and fair as the dawn ; 

Like the face of an angel it seems, my love. 
By Nature's own Artist exquisitely drawn ; 

Thy beauty is radiant as heaven's own rays. 

Too dazzlingly lovely for mortals to gaze 
Upon. 

As infinite even as Time, my love. 

So infinite is my love for thee ; 
It rises o'er Death sublime, my love. 

And fathomless as the waves of the sea : 



31 

Nor hight, nor depth, nor measurement knows, 
It onlv pants in thee to repose. 
And be. 



THE BRIDE iJND GROOM. 

Hail happy pair ! whose lives henceforth shall flow. 
Mingling their placid currents into one ; 

Who deem your heaven of bliss begun below. 
Ere yet the gates of paradise are won. 

Pleasure for you has filled her goblet up. 
Aye ! even to overflowing. To each lip. 

With eager hands, ye place the brimming cup. 
To take from thence full many a rapturous sip. 

To you the future looks as bright as May, 
And rosy as the blush of sunset skies ; 

Hope warbles in your ears her tenderest lay. 
And Love's soft radiance sparkles from your eyes. 

O happiest moment of thy manhood's prime. 
Thou on whose cheek its mantling color glows ; 

Thrice blissful period of thy summer's time. 
Thou fairer to thy love than Sharon's rose. 

Ye deem no joy on earth can equal yours ; 

So pure, so sweet, so seemingly divine ; 
Upon Life's pathway, such a luster pours. 

That even Sorrow's self is made to shine. 

iThe atmosphere ye breathe is perfumed now ! 

Spiced are the breezes which about you blow ; 
'A flowery fragrance floats around each brow. 

And music charms you with its mellowest flow. 



32 

Life and Youth, linked with the present hour. 
And jocund in the beams of Love's gay sun ; 

Lo ! seated in the shade of Hymen's bower. 
How gladly do you watch the moments run ! 

The tears of grief by you are all forgot ; 

To Love's soft voice ye bend a listening ear. 
Nor mourn those joys that were, but now are not. 

For oh the present fills you with its cheer ! 

Life is to you all poetry and flowers ; 

No cloud obscures the crystal of its sky ; 
On silken pinions fleet the golden hours. 

Fraught with the breath of sweetest melody. 

The stream of Time, unruffled, mirrors back. 
From out its glassy wave, each joyous face. 

As swiftly cleaves your bark its liquid track. 
And bears you to the dreamless realms apace. 

1 will not mar with one rude burst of song. 

The dream of bliss that hovers 'round you now. 
Nor tell how Grief may tarry with you long. 
And cause your souls despondingly to bow. 

God grant that light, and song, and mirth, and 
bloom. 

May evermore around your pathway rise. 
And gild with jov Life's passage to the'tomb. 

And waft your souls exulting to the skies. 



33 

THE GRAVE, 

O drear, unknown, unprecedented clime ! 
The realms of Death ; the courts of inky gloom ; 
The confines of the fabled God of Night; 
The shores of ruin, on which thickly lie 
The wrecks of ages, heaped in glistening piles 
From all the myriad treasuries of the Earth ; 
The store-house of Decay, and Lethean seat 
Of Earth's past years, deep in her ample womb. 
Where blank Oblivion flaps his ebon wings : 
To thee are hastening all. Insatiate, 
Thou criest to Earth, who tries to fill, in vain, 
Thy morbid cravings with her bravest sons. 
Her fairest daughters, chosen from the lap 
Of Freedom and of Luxury. To thee 
Are all alike ; and of the multitudes 
That crowd thy open portals, taking up 
Within thy cheerless courts their cold abodes. 
Thou makest no distinctions. Death supplies 
Thee momently with victims ; while as fast. 
Thy yawning caverns cry aloud for more.- 

O Grave, thou hast my friends ! Within thy breast 

Are they secreted, with the seed of years 

Now past and gone forever. I, alas ! 

Am left to mourn their loss unutterable ; 

And shed for them the unavailing tear. 

Thou hast the great of ages ; hoary men 

Of excellence ; Wisdom's peers ; the good, the 

great ; 
But they have gone, perchance to tread the aisles, 
The dim-seen vistas of eternal night ; 
Perchance to bathe in Lethe's sluggish tide. 



34 

Or haply stroll along its blackened marge, 
And read within its waves their destiny. 
Or say, speak ye from out that voiceless sphere. 
Do dreams, fair visions wrap you in their folds ? 
Aye, do ye dream, or is your long sleep dreamless ? 
Ye speak not ; for the Grave's deep silence now. 
Hath won you. Ah ! alluring charms, vain pomp 
Of fame, wealth, honor, power, here lies your end ; 
Here find ye all an unsought resting place ! 

Thou claimest Nations as thine own, O Grave, 
As well as Earth's fair kindred ! There they lie. 
Shorn of their strength, those once the pride of 

Earth ; 
Those once to whom her people looked with joy — 
Yes ! there they rest ; Achaia, Egypt, Rome, 
Chained in thy dark abyss, a numerous throng ! 
How oft at midnight's meditative hour. 
When all the stars are sentineled above. 
And casting upon Earth their watchful glance. 
Thought pushes from mine eyes the hand of sleep. 
And I am led by Fancy's magic power. 
To where the desert spreads its shifting sands. 
Or ocean smiles enamored of the night ; 
And then I think that those same stars that beam 
So brightly from the blue empyrean. 
Are beaming on the couches of the dead. 

The dead ! why they have lain them down to rest 
Within thy bosom unrelenting Grave, 
Since Time began to chronicle the years. 
Thy servant Death devotedly fulfils 
Thine every mandate with his utmost speed. 
Throughout the centuries that have sped their 
flight. 



35 

His hand has heaped upon thy spacious shrine 
The spoils of generations fled and gone. 
Even now his darts are quivering in the breasts 
Of hapless thousands, who before the Morn 
Touches afresh the crimson-curtained east. 
Shall pillow on thy lap their wearied forms. 
His unoffending victims sleep to-day 
Deep down on restless ocean's weedy floor ; 
Or where the forest waves its emerald locks ; 
Or underneath some marble's mossy slab. 
Forever hushed in Death's undreaming rest. 

Tears fill mine eyes, as future years unroll 

Their changing scenes before mc. Thou, O 

Grave ! 
Shalt shortly claim the moist, red lip, and cheek. 
Dimpling with smiles, of her who yester-eve 
Was made a bride ; and he from whose high brow 
The light of manhood shines serenely down. 
And he whose sight is growing dim with age. 
Alas ! the smile, the glow, the song, the bloom. 
All that we are, or may be, or have been. 
Are thine and thy Destroyer's. We are fast 
Hastening to join the millionr., gone before. 
Who crowd thy dark and comfortless domains. 



TIME. 

Time thou fierce ravager of human things ; 
Thou of the sickle keen, and chilling touch ; 
Who can subdue thee by entreaty, turn 
Thy tireless feet from off the beaten track. 
Or who thy onward progress can impede? 
Thou bringest with thee Death, and dost create 
New generations, that shall fill the void 

4 



36 

Of generations past. Thou lay'st in ruins 
The mightiest frame that hath resisted thee 
For centurieS;, and hangest o'er its walls. 
The matted ivy, symbol of decay. 
Thou spreadest famine o'er a smiling land. 
Whose open wings shake from their midnight folds 
Death and destruction, and thou markest man 
For either happiness or woe ; rejoicing some 
With thy munificence, while others writhe 
And groan beneath the pressure of thy hand. 
The aged feel thee pressing on them sore. 
Sapping the life-blood out from their worn vitals. 
And bearing them in silence to the tomb. 
Thou rainest on the Earth her pent up plagues. 
Till haughty Nations, stricken, bow the knee 
In meek submission, humbled by thy might; 
And as thou passest on in awful power. 
There may be heard, ascending up to heaven. 
The wail of those v/ho bend above their dead. 

Thou art still flying o'er thy wreck-strewn path. 

The scene of horror, and of grim dismay. 

Of all the myriads, smitten by the light. 

From the far birth of ages until now. 

None has escaped the keenness of thine eye; 

But all have yielded to thy crushing strength. 

And sunk beneath the lightning of thy glance. 

By the cold river's side ; within the gloom 

Of neighboring forests, where the voice of birds 

Swells for the dead a mournful requiem. 

Or where the cataract pours its solemn dirge. 

There those whom thou hast overcome are laid, — 

Without a stone to mark their nameless graves, — 

To slumber while the ages pass their rounds. 

Behold the sons of men in laughing youth ! 



37 

"Thou earnest them away as with a flood," 
And where the sound of many feet, and laugh 
Of mirthful maidens, years gone by, were heard 
To echo down some gay saloon, whose walls 
Were mirror-hung, and arras-curtained, now 
The thistle shakes its down upon the air ; 
Tenacious creepers wed the casement-frames. 
And silence fills the place with boding fear. 
Dread tokens of thy presence and thy power. 

And so with kingdoms, thou subduest them ; 
Rome, Carthage, and Assyria's fame is gone. 
Their scepters given to strangers, and their names 
Become unto their offspring a reproach. 
But thou my country, chosen land of Art, 
And brighter seat of Nature, where proud streams 
Leap from the hills, and mountains lift their forms. 
Snow-peaked and huge, to the ethereal blue ; 
Where Science sits, and views within her reach. 
Years of majestic learning, shalt thou feel 
The weight of Time, and bow beneath his touch ? 
Nay ! ever tireless be thy wings out-spread. 
Till thou shalt stand among the Nations, chief. 
The one sole power in Earth. Alas! I claim 
For thee by far too much, since even thou. 
Must fail at length, and be with those that were. 
For Time v/ith unarrested hand shall pluck 
The very stars from Night's imperial crown. 
And quench their luster in chaotic gloom ; 
Yea, even more ! from the encirclng heavens. 
His breath shall blow Day's monarch from his 

throne. 
And shake the pillars of the universe. 

O thou dread foe to all the race of man, 
A few more days and I shall yield to thee ! 



38 

A few more days, and I shall cease to feel, ■ 
What unborn millions yet must realize. 
The gloom in which a world is veiled by thee. 
Have I not mourned above the friends I loved. 
Whom thy unpityinghand hath touched, till Grief 
Hath prematurely streaked my locks with gray ! 
Yes ! I have stood beside their open graves. 
While the hot tears like rain-drops coursed my 

cheeks. 
And taking one last glance, have gone my way, 
Aching with grief, and desolate at heart. 
Bereaved, deserted, friendless and alone. 

Man might as well attempt to stay thy flight. 
As to reverse the motion of the Earth, 
And cause her with accelerated speed. 
Backward to journey through the fields of space. 
None can retard thy progress. Day and night. 
Year in, year out, thy pinions still are spread. 
Upbearing thee forever. From thy hands 
Thou lettest slip the ages, which perform 
Their cycles, and are gathered back to thee. 
Beneath thy feet, the mountains bow their heads. 
Hoary with length of years ; the oceans moan. 
And fret, and chafe their shores in sullen rage. 
As if aweary of their changeless life ; 
The everlasting hills are seamed with age. 
And pierced wnth fissures in their ragged sides. 
Widening and deepening as the centuries flee. 
And Death is surfeited ; yet still thy hand 
Is red with slaughtered innocence, and foul . 
With plunder wrested from the Adamic race. 
The grave is filled, and Earth is heaped with those. 
Slain by thy servant Death, yet thou art still 
Engaged in devastating Nature's works. 
And spreading ruin o'er a groaning world. 



39 



THE YOUNG MAN'S SOLILOQUY, 

Dear me ! how strange an impression 
Those features have left on my heart ! 

Though why I sit thinking about them, 
I really can't tell for my part ! 

'Tis true the m.aiden was pretty ! 

A fairer I never have seen ! 
But 'tis not altogether her beauty. 

That haunts me this evening I ween ! 

Her hair was the deepest of auburn ; 

Her cheeks had the hue of the rose ; 
Her features were radiant as morning. 

When its light in the orient glows. 

Oh ! she was as fair as the sunshine. 
And as bright was her innocent face, 

V/here the finger of Time or of Sorrow, 
Had left not a visible trace. 

But pshaw ! I have seen other maidens. 

As equally handsome as she. 
And in spite of their wonderful beauty. 

My heart until now has been free. 

Then what in the world can have charmed me. 
If it be not her face, nor her form ! 

Confound it ! there's something about her. 
That's raised in my breast quite a storm ! 

'Tis not in the flow of her tresses, 

'Tis not in the hue of her cheek, 
'Tis not in the grace of her person. 

That I for the riddle must seek. 
4* 



40 

'Tis something — but, bother upon me, 

I really can't tell what it is ! 
Ah dear ! she's a charming young creature ; 

Her name — let me see — why its Liz ! 

Be it Lizzie, or Katy, or Susan, 

That has nothing to do with the spell 

Which this fairy has doubtless cast o'er me. 
But how it was done I can't tell ! 

Stop — let me consider a moment ! 

There is something about her I know. 
That must be exquisitelv charming, 

To have spell-bound and dazzled me so ! 

Perhaps its the charm of her manners. 
Perhaps its the smile that she wore. 

Perhaps — well its none of this nonsense. 

For I've pondered these things o'er and o'er. 

Her beauty has in a great measure 

Exerted its charm on my heart. 
But still there is something beside it. 

That causes my bosom to sm.art. 

Heigh-ho ! I believe I have got it ! 

I have it as sure as a dot ! 
I knew I would fathom the mystery. 

And that before leaving the spot ! 

It is — but I cannot express it. 

Though methinks I can hear it e'en now ; 
So entrancingly sweet and melodious. 

Like the warble of birds on the bough. 



41 

Such music ! oh never did mortal 

Hear aught to compare with its tone. 

As it came from the lips of that maiden. 
On the evening I met her alone ! 

I knew she had somehow bewitched me. 
And now I have found it at last ; 

'Tis her musical voice, whose soft accents 
Still ring from the groves of the past! 

Oh, her's was a laughter so mellow — 
'Twas rich as the tones of a flute ! 

And the words that she spoke in my hearing. 
But rendered my own language mute ! 

Yes ! I can distinctly remember. 

Though its strange that I couldn't before. 
We sat very close to each other. 

On the steps of her father's front door. 

We talked of the wind and the weather. 

Of the latest Parisian styles. 
And stole at each other side glances. 

And smiled our most loving of smiles. 

But oh such a freedom of manner ! 

A voice so delightfully sweet. 
United with so much iiaivete, 

No wonder they made my heart beat ! 

It beats and it pines for that lady. 
Whose eye-lashes rival the night ; 

Who fascinates more by her speaking. 
Than aught else if I read aright. 



42 

I know till the moment I saw her. 
No damsel my bosom could move ; 

But now, I'm afraid the boy Cupid 
Has melted my" soul into love. 

For I feel most decidedly funny, 
This cigar I smoke must be strong. 

Or else I am ill, for I'm certain 

There's something about me that's wrong ! 

maid with the sweetest of voices ; 
With eyes which are brimful of mirth, 

1 really believe without doubting. 

You're the nicest young lady on earth ! 

I'll hie me right straight to my chamber. 
And love, I will dream but of you. 

Till morning peeps in through my window. 
And fills with its glory my view ! 



1V[0RN1NG. 

With songs, and tuneful harmony ; perfumes 
More grateful to the sense than Arab's sweets. 
The Morning lightly trips along. Ye that 
Are ravished by the smiles of Nature fair. 
Come wander forth into the woods, or thread 
Your cheerful way along the river's course. 
Or through the jungle, or by grove and bower. 
Where'er you turn your eyes, fresh scenes shall 

meet 
Your vision, scenes more beautiful by far. 
Than if beheld in noonday's garish reign. 



43 

No voice discordant sounds to break your thoughts. 

Though by the rill you stroll or mountain's side ; 

The atmosphere drops balm on all around ; 

The air is pregnant with melodious sounds, 

And all creation eloquent with praise. 

There may be heard, above, the wing of grouse, 

Or 'neath, the pleasant crackle of the soil. 

Or on the right the blackbird's merry trill. 

Or left the rustling of the forest leaves. 

But this is Nature's music, and should tend 

To make your heart responsive to her own. 

Come ye who love to smell the breath of Morn, 

And listen to the wood-thrush chant her song; 

Come ! leave your beds ! off to the dewy, fields ! 

Away at once ! and clamber the steep hills. 

To view the sun, as up the glowing east 

He climbs in all his regal majesty. 

See how the heavens are blushing in his glance ; 

The gates of day swing out, and now its king 

Springs gloriously from his couch of sleep. 

And shakes the bands of slumber from his limbs. 

And laughs, and smiles, and pours his splendor 

down 
Upon the earth with ten-fold brilliancy. 

Oh what a charm there is about the hour. 
The cool refreshing hour of early morn ! 
When Nature wakens from her night's repose. 
Glistering with dew, and big with gratitude. 
Which swells from every twig, and leaf, and spray, 
ITo the great Sovereign of the Universe. 
'Tis then' I love to seek some shaded haunt. 
Deep in the bosom of a leafy grove. 
And kneeling on the soft grass, pour my heart. 



44 

In unison with Nature's, unto Him, 
Whose Hand hath kept me all throughout the night. 
And oped mine eyelids to the Morning's pure 
And blessed radiance. If thy soul is pained 
With aught of earthly sorrow, or thine eyes 
Wet with the drops of grief, or if the hand 
Of fell disease hath made thy form to bow 
Beneath its heavy pressure, and hath caused 
The rose to wither from thy wasted cheek. 
Then when the Morning breaks upon the earth. 
Rouse thee from slumber, and go out to greet 
Her presence on the hills. Inhale her breath. 
Perfumed with incense from unnumbered flowers. 
And gaze upon the beauty of her face. 
And listen to the music of her voice ; 
For oh ! she carries with her such a balm, 
A cordial so refreshing, that the hearts 
Of all who hail her coming in the east. 
Are made to glow within, and sing for joy. 
And overflov/ with gladness, as she walks 
In crimson glory, up the roseate sky. 
And prints her footsteps on its ruddy brow. 
And flingeth from her palace in the heavens. 
Upon the earth, low basking in her smiles. 
Mirth, song and beauty, such as none but they. 
Who feel her gracious presence can enjoy. 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 

Why should we fear to die ? 

Why cling with such tenacity to life ? 
Why shudder at the seeming agony. 

With which grim Death is rife ? 



45 

Perhaps we dread to pierce 

The veil, which hides the future from our sight ; 
The parting throes ; the dark funereal hearse ; 

The grave's cimmerian night. 

Death brings release to all ; 

Rest to the weary, to the sufferer rest ; 
And bids the mantle of oblivion fall 

On every heart oppressed. 

He gives the wretch relief. 

Sore burdened with the troublous cares of earth ; 
Heals and assuages every wound, which grief. 

And w^oe have brought to birth. 

He is a friend to those 

Whose stiffened frames are bent v/ith age or toil. 
And all impartial, places friends and foes. 

Alike in common soil. 

All that have been and are, 

He claims as his, nor claims them all in vain. 
For lo ! he gathers from both near and far. 

The subjects of his reign. 

In narrow beds of clay. 

Scooped from the breast of mother Earth they lie. 
Freed from the cares that vex Life's little day. 

To all eternity. 

Death is as sure as Fate, 

Inevitable as the day of doom. 
And throws on both the lowly and the great. 

The sackcloth of the tomb. 

Then mortal, why repine r 
The Monster must be met, and met bv thee ; 



46 

Fear not, but unto him in faith resign. 
Thy soul by him made free. 

Free from the touch of care ; 

Free from the frown of envy and of hate ; 
Escaped from all that rendered living here. 

So drear and desolate. 

How blest is the repose 

Of those who slumber in the grave's dark womb ! 
Unknown to them the thousand ills and woes. 

That filled their lives with gloom. 

But though their sleep be long. 

These dusty millions shall arise again. 

Life-quickened ; an innumerable throng, 
From Death's unbarred domain. 

And oh ! to them whose feet 

Have trod in life the paths which Virtue paves. 
How sweet the sound ! felicitously sweet. 

That calls them from their graves. 

Eternal bliss is theirs. 

Throughout unending ages yet to come. 
Beyond or earthly pains, or earthly cares. 

In realms of light and bloom. 

Robes of the purest white 

Array each form in vestments bright as morn. 
And loftiest strains of music, day and night. 

From out their lips are borne. 

Oh for a lot like this. 

Who would not gladly molder into dust. 
To gain that haven of unfailing bliss. 

When Earth shall yield her trust ! 



47 

Live then, my soul, to say. 

Long ere this body in the tomb shall lie. 
And mix and m.ingle with its kindred clay, — 

"Oh how I long to die !" 



DAYBREAK, 

Look love ! the sky is all aglow I 

Day breaketh in the east, and lo ! 

How beautifully bright and fair. 

The Morning twines her golden hair 

About the azure cheeks of Day, 

Whose deepening blush bespeaks her sway 

See ! through our ivied window, love. 
How sweet the daybreak from above. 
Beams on our eyes, and floods with light 
The Earth, who from the arms of Night 
Has freed herself, to feel the bliss 
Of Morning's warm and rapturous kiss I 

Her dainty hands have richly dressed 
In flaming hues the orient's breast. 
And laid their velvet touch, upon 
The crimson bosom of the dawn. 
While floats from out the earth and skv, 
A gush of wildwood m.elody. 

Come love ! I long to be away. 
And view the glorious birth of Day, 
And watch him mount his gilded throne. 
And shoot his beams refulgent down, 
On hill, and plain, and vale beneath, 
Balm.-fed from Nature's violet breath ! 



48 

Hail Morning, sister of the Night, 
Enwreathing all the heavens with light! 
I joy to see thee spread thy wing. 
When Night has ceased her dews to fling. 
And gladden with thy smiles the arch. 
Bright with the sun's returning march. 

Thou bringest with thee in thy train. 

Light, fragrance, health and bloom again. 

And Nature lifts anew to thee 

Her voice in gleeful ecstasy ; 

For Night must yield her ebon sway. 

When heaven grows luminous with Day. 



THE WESTERN HUNTER. 

Here will we rest, my bonny steed, 

Till I have gazed my fill ; 
For never have I felt as now. 

The hot blood in me thrill: 
And well it may, for look below. 

What splendor greets the eye ; 
Far-stretching prairies roll away. 

Until they kiss the sky ! 

There herds of bison roam the plain, 

With tread that shakes the earth. 
And nearer floats the voice of birds, 

That wake the woods to mirth ; 
And glancing in the sunbeam's track, 

The wild deer skim the ground. 
Fearless alike of hunter's horn. 

And yelp of hunter's hound. 



49 

Amid the waves of matted grass 

That sway beneath the breeze, 
I mark the streamlet's bickering course. 

Where lean the o'er-shadowing trees 
Around whose banks the prairie hen. 

Sails noiseless, to and fro. 
Or with a solitary scream. 

Lights on the marge below. 

Beneath me, on the prairie's breast. 

The loveliest flow^ers are seen ; 
Flowers that rival in their hues. 

The heaven's resplendent sheen : 
There the euphorbia lifts her head. 

There glow the malva's leaves. 
And yonder on the scented breeze. 

The rose her bosom heaves. 

I mark the squirrel's foot near by. 

Imprinted on the mold. 
And listen to the raccoon's bark. 

From forests dim and old ; 
Forests which ne'er have bowed before 

The settler's ax, or known 
Aught save the voice of melody 

Through ages that have flown. 

From their green depths, the mock-bird's song 

Is ringing on the air. 
Mixed with a thousand warbled lays. 

Which swell and mingle there ; 
Among the boughs, the paroquet 

Is flashing in and out ; 
Within their shade, the oriole 

Flits noiselessly about. 



How oft amid those woods I've strayed. 

Till Day has hid his face 
Within the sable lap of Night, 

Enclasped in her embrace ; 
And then I've lain me to repose. 

My blazing fire beside. 
Till Morning from her scarlet couch. 

Rose in the east a bride. 

All night the cougar's dismal howl 

Hath broke upon my ear ; 
All night the growling of the wolves 

Has filled the woods with fear ; 
But when Aurora's ruddy smile 

Shone brightly o'er the earth. 
In place of sounds like these, their aisles 

Have fairly rung with mirth. 

Full oft I've traversed on my steed. 

Those sun-bright meads, that lie 
In. boundless verdure, underneath 

The Day's refulgent eye ; 
That sweep for miles on miles away. 

Beyond the sky's far reach ; 
Whose emerald wastes have seldom heard 

The melody of speech. 

There where the red man's war whoop pealed^ 

The wild horse dots the plain. 
And groves of cotton-wood arise. 

Like islands on the main ; 
Groves where the turkey feeds her young, 

A^nd pheasant builds her nest ; 
In which at noontide's sultry hour, 

Fve sat me down to rest. 



51 

Mv feet have climbed the sunless brows 

Of mountains, bald and bleak ; 
Hoar with the snows, which centuries back 

Have sifted on their peak. 
From crag to crag the bighorn leaps, 

And in their caverned sides. 
The grizzly bear has made himself 

A lair, wherein he hides. 

Here where the light of Nature's face 

From vale and hill-top beams ; 
Here w^here the brightness of her smile 

On wood and prairie gleams; 
Where her soft voice is heard to speak 

In music's sweetest tone ; 
Her own glad votary I roam. 

Free, joyous and alone. 

With her I spend the day, with her 

I sleep secure at night. 
And feel, in gazing on her charms. 

Each hour renewed delight. 
She cheers me onward in the chase. 

Consoles me when oppressed ; 
Wipes the damp moisture from mine eyes. 

When sorrow clouds my breast. 

I hear her whisper in the pines; 

Her thunder, when the storm 
Sweeps in its flight sublime, above 

The mountain's shivering form. 
She veils herself from view^ and lo ! 

The Earth grows pale with gloom. 
Till from her face, the veil withdrawn. 

Restores its wonted bloom. 
5* 



How oft with her I've trod beside 

The river's solemn flow. 
And watched the sunset on its breast. 

In roods of crimson glow ; 
And then, when Night came dov/n, and lit 

Her torches in the sky, 
I've gazed upon those glimmering lamps. 

Till sleep has sealed mine eye. 

Deep in the unpruned forest's heart, 

I, build my humble cot ; 
The foliage of the tulip tree. 

And wild vine mark the spot : 
There feeds the doe, the antelope 

From out a limpid rill 
That babbles near my flower-gemmed thatch. 

Oft stoops to drink her fill. 

Talk of your solitary scenes ! 

A solitude like this. 
Is one in which a soul like mine 

May feel an age of bliss. 
O give me but my steed and gun. 

Take all things else away. 
But let me have the power to roam, 

Untrammeled, where I may ! 

I'll trace the desert's trackless sands. 

And speed to where the sun 
Pours on the far Pacific's coast 

His beams when day is done. 
Naught shall restrain my flight, though mount 

And river intervene. 
And pathless woods, whose tangled boughs 

The light of noonday screen. 



53 

Freedom ! if the world but knew 
Like me thy place of rest. 

They'd wander from afar, to seek 

Its radiance in the West : 
To dwell where heaven's free breath is pure 

As Morning's lucid smile ; 
Where naught but innocence and joy, 

The passing hours beguile. 

1 would not change a life like mine. 

For countless stores of wealth ; 
Since pleasure in its purest forms ; 

The priceless boon of health ; 
Freedom of thought, speech, action, these 

Are mine to feel and know, 
And not for all this world contains. 

Would I their bliss forego. 



HOPE'S FUTURITY. 

There is some solemn and mysterious fate. 
That binds me to my present lonely lot. 

And renders life, so bleak and desolate. 
That oftentimes I wish that I were not. 
Mirth haunts no longer Pleasure's fairy grot. 
And Sorrow's feet now press the gloomy spot. 

Where Joy once dwelt with blissful hopes elate. 

Yet still afar I cast my longing eyes. 

And pierce the Future's dimly-lighted screen. 

And view the aspect of serener skies. 

Far brighter than Life's skies have ever been. 
How many days till then must intervene. 
How" much of anguish which my soul has seen. 

Must vet be mine, 'twere fruitless to surmise. 



54 

Far off, upon the ocean-depths of Time, 

Hope warbles to my still expectant breast : 
"There lies for thee, within the Future's clime, 

A golden isle with mellow fruitage drest. 

There when Life's sun slides softly down the 
west, 

^olian strains shall gently lull to rest 
Thy bosom with their sweetly-soothing chime.'* 

It looms before me now, that isle of bliss. 
Out-lying on the Future's unknown sea ; 

The odorous winds full many a rapturous kiss 
Have stolen from its groves in ecstasy ; 
There swells the voice of woodland melody. 
And sunshine paints its breast most gorgeously. 

With hues too fair for such a world as this. 

Out from the Present's murk, and cark, and gloom. 
Into that realm of incandescent light, 

O lead me Fate ! and with your wonted bloom. 
Roll back ye skies the shades of Sorrow's night ! 
O lift upon these pallid orbs of sight 
Thy promised boon, fond Hope, whose aspect, 
bright 

With sunshine. Life's drear path shall yet illume ! 



ACTION 



A righteous Providence hath so ordained 
All things created which exist and are. 

From hidden nooks, where bloom the lowliest 
flowers. 

To w^here the Midnight lights her starry bowers. 
And burning Noonday rolls his blazing car — 

That action breathes in all which he hath planned. 



Nothing in Nature is inert ; the rills 

Murmur forever toward the voiceful sea. 

Whose waves replenish all the clouds with rain. 

Which thence refresh the insatiate earth again ; 
Crowned with its summer fruitage stands the tree. 

And clothed with verdure rise the eternal hills. 

The fields renew their harvests every year ; 

The Earth, unwearied, gathers fresh supplies 
From Nature's larder, and with liberal hand 
Scatters her largess broadcast o'er the land ; 

From the green forest ceaseless odors rise. 
Which summer's zephyrs on their winglets bear. 

The seasons come and go, and each performs 
Untiringly the part assigned it — on. 

Forever onward, with unflagging pace. 

Earth traverses the star-gemmed paths of space ; 
And with meridian splendor shines the sun. 

Though 'round him all the heavens are black with 
storms. 

But action is not visible alone 

Within the natural world — the works of man. 
His cities which o'er-spread a continent. 
His commerce which to distant climes is sent — 

All he hath wrought which human eye may scan. 
Proclaim that he and action's self are one. 

So in the moral world, if men would be 

Champions for Truth, and Justice, and the Right, 

In striving to subdue the wrong, and raise 

Morality's fair standard, where the blaze 

Of Heaven's broad smile may scatter Error's 
night, 

'Tis action that must give the victory. 



66 

Think not, O man, while "rourd you systems roll 
Amid the skyey firmament, that naught 

But indolence should m.ark your present lot ! 

What would the world have been to day, had not 
Labor and perseverance nobly wrought. 

In raising earthly structures for the soul. 

Sloth fetters with its chains the human will. 
And shackles the free spirit ; binds it down. 

And shatters all its energies — to do 

Is the grand watchword man should keep in view, 
Unmindful of the present's rudest frown. 

Let him press on indomitable still. 

Life is possessed ot solemn meaning ; we 

Are but ambassadors from heaven's high court. 

To carry out the grand design of Him, 

Who looketh kindly from his throne on them. 
Whose labors in this sublunary port. 

Are given to his cause incessantly. 

Rouse then, my soul, puissant for the strife ! 

Bid pusillanimous Sloth begone, arouse ! 
Gird on thy armor, and in action find 
Perpetual serenity of mind ; 

The cause of Virtue and the Right espouse ; 
Act well thy part, unceasingly, through life. 



THE TIMID LOVER. 

At dusk, when the sundown melteth 

Into the gloom of Night, 
I seek my loved one's casement. 

Ere the stars are gleaming bright. 
And stand beside her lattice, 

'Neath the moon's approving light. 



57 

Over the damask curtains, 

T see her shadow fall ; 
Over the street, and beyond it. 

Upon the garden wall. 
As she moves in queen-like beauty. 

Through her father's stately hall. 

I hear the flute-like cadence 

Of her voice, so soft and sweet. 
Drift out on the passing zephyrs. 

Through her casement, and into the street ; 
Till bathed in the ravishing music, 

I burst into tears at her i'eQt. 

Ah well ! I know how timid, 

And fearful is my heart. 
Since often from my eyelids. 

The tears are forced to start. 
As I feel within my bosom. 

Love's penetrating dart. 

Oh had I but the courage, 

I'd seek my fair one's side, 
And murmur in her hearing. 

The love I'm now denied. 
And claim her hand in wedlock, 

Whatever might betide ! 

Sometimes in the cool of the evening, 

I catch a glimpse of her face. 
As she threads the crowded side-walk. 

Or rolls in her gilded chaise ; 
And I gaze at her form, so sylph-like. 

Till it fades from my vision apace. 



58 

Sometimes — and the sight has rendered 
Me speechless with its pain — 

As I stand beside her lattice. 

When the Day begins to wane, 

I see the form of another. 

Loom up through the window-pane. 

I hear his whispered accents 

Breathed softly in her ear. 
And list her sweet-toned laughter. 

As her cheek is bent to hear. 
And my own grows pale with passion, 

When I think of a rival near. 

One glance — and I see him pressing 
The damsel to his breast ; — 

One glance — and their lips uniting, 
Together are fondly pressed. 

And her undulating bosom 

Speaks that Love is now its guest. 

Alas ! my soul is starving 

For the love it dare not claim ; 

And my every hope is blasted. 
Since the bolder suitor came ; 

For Despair has quenched within me 
All of Hope's inconstant flame. 



So now beside the lattice 
Of the one I love in vain, 

I stand, and look, and listen. 
As the Day begins to v/ane. 

And feel within me planted, 
An imm.edicable pain. 



59 



NJ U T A B I L 1 T Y , 

All tilings in Nature are material. 
And subject to the blighting touch of Time. 
On every earthly object, which exists 
Beneath the heavens, however multiform. 
The finger of Decay hath written change. 
Though bright the luster of the rose to-day. 
Perchance, before to-morrow's sun relumes 
The faded splendor of the orient. 
Its evanescent beauty shall have fled. 
The oak, whose sturdy branches have withstood 
For centuries the whirlwind and the storm. 
Succumbs at length to age, and totters down. 
And crumbles into dust upon the plain. 

Morn breaks upon a jocund hemisphere; 
Her wanton smiles are gladdening every heart ; 
The bosom bounds 'neath her seductive sway. 
And like the melody of summer birds. 
Breathes out, unto the incense-blirdened winds. 
The fulness of its soul-entrancing joy. 
Day waneth, and the Night with cruel haste. 
Wraps in her inky shroud his lifeless form. 
And hides the sunlight's gorgeous pageantry 
In her dark mantle of surrounding gloom. 

Spring dawns upon the sun-rejoicing world. 
And from her nectared lips, the sweetest balm 
Out-breathes, and flingeth over all the woods 
Her drapery of softly-budding green. 

Lo ! Summer's fairy footsteps press the globe ; 
How gloriously beautiful the Day 
Sheds his eternal radiance from the skies ! 
The pilfering breezes through the garden rove, 
6 



60 

And rifle from the orchard's fragrant boughs. 
And honeysuckle's chalice, where the hum-bird 
Drinks choicest dew, their enviable sweets. 
The husbandman looks out upon his fields. 
And as his eye surveyeth from afar 
An endless sv/eep of soft luxuriant grass. 
Till the green meadows mingle with the sky ; 
And as his gaze beholds on either side 
Wide-spreading harvests which enclose him round, 
And shake their golden locks in mirthful play. 
His heart within him swells with ecstasy. 

The brightness of the season soon departs. 

Pale, sallow Autumn, with his winnowing breath, 

And Iris-tinted cloak of divers hues. 

Plucks from the Earth her summer brilliancy ; 

And lays his shriveled hand upon the woods. 

And dashes all the forest leaves with blood. 

And mutters from the melancholy heavens, 

In tones of strange disquietude, the sure 

Precursors of approaching Winter's gloom. 

He comes, from Boreal climes of sleet and snow, 
Congealing, with his icy breath, the streams. 
And loosening from their caves his piercing winds, 
Which howl in dismal concert from the hills. 
And stiffen with their frosty touch the form 
Of prostrate Nature. From the sunless arch. 
Athwart the air, a voiceless shower descends. 
Which mantles with its fleece the buried earth. 
Stern Winter reigns despotic o'er the world. 
And by the fearful rigor of his sway. 
Spreads gloom and desolation all around. 

All things decay which appertain to Earth, 
Or suffer change ; and there is not to-day, 



61 

Upon her ample bosom to be found 
One single object which is still the same 
As when the eyes of Adam, gazed thereon. 
And view^ed the aspect of its countenance. 

Ephemeral as the hues which crimson eve. 

When Day reposes, cradled on the waves, — 

Engirdling v/ith their arms his watery couch, — 

Are earthly bloom and beauty ; they enrich 

Creation's lap with splendor for a time. 

But soon departing, leave no trace behind 

By which the world can mark their hasty flight. 

As in the far beginning, when the Earth 

Fresh from the hands of her Creator came, 

To tread the starred pavilion of the skies. 

Now, even as then, arise the fruitful hills 

Whence Morning looketh from her eastern tow^er ; 

Still wave the forests in the summer wind ; 

The mountains raise their venerable heads. 

Crowned with the snows of vanished centuries ; 

The rivers wind forever oceanward. 

Refreshing with their thirst-assuaging tides 

A hundred realms through which their waters flow ; 

Myriads of flowers garden all the vales ; 

The groves resound with ceaseless melody. 

And from afar, old ocean's yeasty waves, — 

Whose saline azure belts the rounded globe, — 

Uplift his anthem to the listening clouds ! 

All Nature is as brightly beautiful. 

As when the morning stars together sang, 

Symphonious, over young creation's birth ; 

Yet all is changed ! Roll from the curtained past, 

O Thought, the years which since have intervened ; 

Those years, the silent chroniclers of deeds 

Atrocious, and events whose terrors shade 



62 

The tragic page of history. Fierce War 
Has trod the hills beneath his iron tread. 
And in his mad impetuosity. 
Hurled down upon the Nations or' the earth. 
Crouched at his feet, his blazing thunderbolts ; 
And fired their cities, till the flames uprose. 
As if to swallow in their lurid breath 
The crimson-visaged denizens of heaven. 

Tempests have sullied with their darkest frown 
The ocean-like serenity of space. 
And from their skyey windows, fiercely showered 
A watery stream, which deluged field and plain. 
And drowned the vales, and flooded all the groves. 

Whirlwinds have leveled the green woods ; uptorn 

The oak from its foundation, and laid bare 

The mangled breast of Nature in their rage. 

The Earth has oped at times her famished jaws. 

And to appease her hunger, swallowed up 

Hill, stream and valley. From the mountain peaks, 

Volcanic fires have issued, till the sky 

Shone as if all ignited with the blaze ; — 

The roar of the destroying element 

Has shook the earth for miles on miles around ; 

Incessantly, adov/n the mountain's sides. 

Hot streams of lava, unrestrained, have burst. 

And swept the helpless cities underneath ; 

Emboweling within their firey waves. 

Monarch and slave, fair maid and helpless babe. 

Buried together in one common grave. 

The Deep in his ungovernable rage. 

Lashed into fury by the ravening gales. 

And bellowing his anger to the storm, — 

Has dashed himself upon his quivering shores. 



63 

And bursting every barrier, overwhelmed 

Impoverished kingdoms in his foaming ire ; 

And Time, the dark, invidious adversary 

To all that's fair in Nature, with his breath. 

Foul with the musty odor of Decay, 

Has breathed upon her inoffensive form. 

Till one by one, her verdure-loving trees 

Have cumbered with their prostrate trunks the 

ground ; 
The flowers have faded 'neath his withering touch; 
The birds have hushed their strains mellifluous ; 
The streams have changed their weed-entangled beds 
And sought for other channels. Thus the years 
Have sped their swift, inevitable flight 
Into the dubious shadows of the past; 
Leaving behind them, as they left the v/orld, 
The impress of the footprints of Decay 
Stamped upon all things earthly 'neath the sun. 
Still are the lips of Nature bright with smiles ; 
Her countenance is luminous with love ; 
Laughs the wade Earth with sunshine, and the woods 
Are vocal w^ith euphonious carolings ; 
For Nature, though her sylvan garb may change. 
Renews it yearly, and rebuilds again 
From out the ruins of her former self. 
Another frame, which though to outward gaze, 
Seems as magnificently glorious 
As is its wont, is equally as frail. 

But not alone do Nature's subjects feel 
The ravages of Change and Time, for lo ! 
From the prolific womb of ages past, 
Mankind hath sprung, whose issue peoples Earth. 
Man hath his dawn of being, when the skies 
Which bend above him. blush with roseate light ; 
6* 



6-i 

He hath his noon, when overhead life's sun 
Pours from its zenith soft refulgencv. 
While Pleasure holds her goblet to his lips. 
Whose waves he quaffs, and ever calls for more ; 
His eve, when down along life's pathwav streams 
The farewell radiance of its setting orb. 
In the bright spring-time of existence, blithe 
And buoyantly he treads his joyous way ; 
Charmed with the roses which perfume his path. 
And pleased with all his ravished sight beholds. 
When summer comes, he needs must emulate 
His predecessors, some of whom have culled. 
From Learning's fair conservatory, wreaths 
Of amaranthine flowers, to gem their brows. 
And crown their foreheads with perennial bloom ; 
And some have heaped their spacious granaries ; 
And some have trafficked in the marts of trade ; 
And some have followed Fashion's giddy round ; 
And others, all unmindful of themselves. 
Have labored for the common good of man, — 
• And so he follows eager in their steps. 

His autumn draweth nigh ; the time when leaf. 
And flower and fruit are shaken from the bough 
Of man's maturer life, and he declines. 
And falls into the sabbath of his age. 

Time waneth, and his winter draws amain. 

Sifting his locks with snow, and palsying 

His nerveless grasp, and stiffened limbs, till Death 

In mercy brings the hapless wretch relief. 

And bosoms him upon his mother Earth, 

In whose kind arms he falleth to repose. 

Alas ! and must the elements consume 



65 

This clayey tegument r and shall the mold 
Forever claim this earth-resolving frame ? 
With which shall perish what hath bidden man 
Determine 'twixt the evil and thef good ? 
That thinking, breathing, acting potentate 
Over the human body, called the soul. 
Deemed by its holder of immortal essence ? 
Shall this commingle w^th the dust, and sink 
Into the starless chambers of the dead. 
Sealed in oblivious slumber, while the years 
Sweep on in their predestined march forever ? 

Filled with the effluence of the Life divine. 

Which vitalizes Nature, and imparts 

Its vigor to creation, as the vine 

Gives to its branches succulence — the soul 

O'er-leaps the grave, and disembodied cleaves 

Her passage to the source whence first she came. 

Sing Earth ! sing Heaven ! aye sing ! for man though 

dead. 
Shall live again, and immarcessibly 
Shall shine, imbowered in Love's unfading clime, 
Beyond the midnight's star-besprinkled roof. 
O rapturous thought ! O bliss unspeakable ! 
Man is immortal, and shall never die ! 
Like a caged bird his spirit beats her wings 
Against these earthly bars, and pants to flee 
Where she shall bask in uncreated light. 
And bathe her plumage in eternal day. 

Time in his devastating flight shall roll 
Along the arcades of eternity 
The ages yet unborn ; when lo ! the heavens 
Will rend in twain their sun-bedazzling robes, 



66 

And shower upon the anguish-riven Earth, 

A sheeted column of consuming fire. 

The hills shall blaze ; the mountains topple down ; 

The valleys smoke ; the forests burn like chaff; 

And ocean's restless surges melt with heat ; 

Then shall the soul, united with the form 

That clothed its deathless substance while on earth. 

Look with serene complacency, and smile 

Upon the conflagration of a world. 

O long expected season of delight. 

Interminable, rise and break the gloom 

Which overhangs this change-beclouded sphere ! 

Rise on the spirit, and upbear it hence. 

To where the blight of change is all unknown. 

And Time, Decay and Death are banished guests ! 

There, in those bowers perpetual sunshine smiles ; 

There music gladdens with its soft refrain. 

Unceasingly, the balm-distilling winds ; 

There crystal waters from the arbors gleam. 

And shady forests rustle to the breeze; 

All radiate with omnipresent Love, 

Whose beamy presence fills the heavens with joy. 

There shall the spirit find her long sought rest ; 

And while the everlasting ages roll. 

Rejoice and flourish in immortal youth. 

Eternal, fadeless and immutable ! 



THE POETS REVERIE, 

The Day is dead within the arms of Night ; 

The star-illumed ceiling of the skies 

Is shorn of sunset's iridescent robe ; 

The moon upon yon river's placid breast. 



67 

Serenel)' floats, beneath its mirroring waves, 
Soon will she hide her visage from the world. 
'Tis night ; fit season for the thoughtful mind. 
To hold communion with itself, and muse 
On hours, w^hich specter-like, now haunt the past. 
And fling their echo down its darksome halls. 
Here underneath these patriarchal trees. 
Which curtain from my sight the spangled dome ; 
This verduous canopy, whence swells the voice 
Of thrush and jay, w^hat time the Morning breaks 
Triumphant from her chamber in the east, 
I'll sit me down, and contemplate awhile. 
Upon the poet's arbitrary fate. 

Who is the poet ? he within whose breast 
Forever swells the chorus of the skies ; 
In whom a flame divinely kindled burns ; 
Whose soul looks out in grandeur from his eyes. 
When Nature turns to him her sunset cheek. 
And showers upon his brow her rainbow smiles. 
He feels within himself the tide of song. 
Stealing in rapturous cadences, throughout 
The secret places of his listening soul. 
And flooding it with tenderest melody. 
His eye perceives the spirit of the muse, 
Pictured in glorious efFulgency, 
High on the crystal archway of the heaven ; 
He hears her voice within the woodland's belt. 
When zephyr sighs among its shadowing boughs. 
Responsive to the tinkling of the rill. 
He feels it in the rushing of the winds. 
When all the clouds are hooded, and the Earth 
Rocks to the wailing requiem of the blast. 
Her presence is his light, and heat, and bloom. 
And colors with its sunlight. Grief's stern brow. 



68 

The cheek of Sorrow, and the pale wan lips 
Of fell Despair, twin sister to the Grave. 

Within some breasts the lamp of Genius burns 
With so much vividness, that even they 
Are to themselves a wonder. Look ! ah look ! 
See where the bard reclines beneath the shade 
Of some fair sycamore ! Below him spread. 
Field, forest, valley, river, lake and sky ; 
His eye is flashing wath poetic fire ; 
His frame is tremulous beneath the weight 
Of thoughts too big for utterance ; his lips 
Are breathing'such intoxicating strains. 
The very birds have hushed their dulcet notes. 
And Nations flock to list the gladsom.e sound. 
Such, Bard of Avon, was thy wondrous power 
Over the minds of myriads, who to day 
Drink in thy music, and such too was thine, 

Harold ! who upon the hights of Fame, 
Didst hold a correspondence with the stars. 

Fame is capricious. Oft her devotee 

Receives no recompense for labors done. 

Till Death has shut upon his embryo muse 

The portals of the tomb, and even then. 

Oft doth she place his intellectual fruits. 

To molder on Oblivion's dusty shelves. 

While century on century rolls away. 

The years depart, and as v/ith voiceless tread. 

They slip into the channels of the past. 

They find my feet still clambering up the steeps 

Of Reputation, to whose slippery sides 

1 cling, and struggle for a foothold. See ! 
High overhead, the molten sunlight gleams. 
As on, and on, and upward still I climb. 



69 

To wash my forehead in the clouds of Fame. 

But what if I should never reach the top 

Of Fame's high pinnacle ? The sands of Life 

Are swiftly sliding through the glass which Timt 

Holds in his hands to count the moments by, 

And yet a weary way before me lies. 

Have I, for lo, these many toilsome years 

Been laboring for naught ? Has honeyed Hope 

Deceived me with an idle phantasy. 

That I w^as born a poet from the womb ? 

Is this an ignis-fatuus of the brain. 

This feeling which my soul has deemed so long 

The breath of Inspiration ? Oh I cannot. 

Will not believe that I have been deluded 

By Expectation, and betrayed by Hope ! 

Else why this passion for the beautiful ; 

This innate yearning after that which lies 

Beyond the base conception of the crowd ; 

This spirit of internal harmony. 

Which pours, forever, deep into my soul. 

Its soothing rain of ceaseless euphony? 

The poet is the child of feeling, lapped. 
And cradled on Imagination's knees ; 
Step after step, led up from infancy. 
By the soft hand of Fancy. To his gaze 
Memory unlocks the storehouse of the past. 
The Future holds her magic telescope. 
And Poesy, that nurse of Lydian airs. 
Beguiles his laggard moments, with her harp 
Tuned to melodious measures, and embalmed 
With odor, richer than the myrrh-filled winds. 
That sprinkle balsam from their heavy wings. 
In that rare clime, called, Arab\ the hlest. 
Oh I have felt the magic of her sway. 



70 

Oft and repeatedly, in times gone by ; 

Have felt it in the beating of the surf 

On ocean's rocky strand; in evening's sigh. 

When the impassioned winds are breathing low. 

And whispering to the flowers ; in matin songs. 

Which upward, through the rosy-tinted air. 

Float skyward, thrilling all the happy dawn. 

As Morning flings her tapestry of gold 

To canopy the azure of the heavens ; 

In the luxuriant verdure of the vales ; 

The tresses of the grove; tne mantling garb 

Of field and forest ; in the rapturous glance ; 

The rnoonbeam smiles ; the liquid melody 

Of w^oman, from whose winsome features spring 

The hues which render Earth a paradise. 

God! I feel it now, as starward cast. 
My vision rests on Night's bejeweled crov/n. 
And sees the deep recesses of the skies. 

Lit up with gems, w^hose scintillating fire 
Fringes the dark with coruscated light. 

1 am as yet unknown to Fame, and bear 
No place upon her record, yet to night. 
Thank God ! I feel the hallow^ing influence 
Of Poesy, engirdling me about. 

As with a belt of fire, and though my name 
May slumber with my ashes in the dust. 
Yet 1 shall not have lived in vain, since Life 
Has been to me a scene of so much light. 
And bloom, and beauty, and my soul hath drunk 
So deeply of the stream of Helicon, 
That I have reveled in another clime, 
Fairer and ampler than this earthly realm. 
And gazed on sights beyond an angel's ken. 
Then Fame, avaunt ! Though I may never gain 
Thy topmost arch, serenely at its base. 
My bones may rest while future ages roll. 



71 

Fortune is fickle as an April sun ; 

But though she frown upon the poet's muse. 

She cannot rob his soul of what it feels. 

If I have not the spirit of the muse 

Within me, whence arise these burning thoughts 

These pleasurable emotions ; this desire. 

And heartfelt yearning for the grand, and great. 

And beautiful, and glorious things of Earth, 

As limned, by Nature's pencil, on her breast ? 

Why is it that the laughter of the brook ; 

The rocky chasm, at whose frosted depths 

Leaps the wild torrent ; the seraphic notes 

Of forest chimes ; the cloud-encircled peaks 

Of distant mountains ; ocean's solemn waves ; 

Tall cliffs, green meadows, and wide spreading 

plains. 
Yea, every pleasant sight upon the globe. 
Rouse deep within me a responsive thrill. 
That ever pulses in harmonious beat 
With Nature's mighty heart ? Slide on, ye years ! 
Though I may not receive the poet's wreath. 
Yet Nature, for the love I bear her now. 
Will drop upon the fresh, green turf, that hides 
My fleshy tabernacle from the stars. 
Her choicest garniture of leaves and flowers. 
And festoon, with her chaplets, my lone couch 
Of slumber, till the round Earth waxes old. 
And Time be swallowed up forevermore 
In the vast billows of Eternity. 



72 

DROWNED, 

In Morning's gladsome beam, the lake out spread 
Its crystal mirror to reflect the splendor, 

Which Day, uprising from his ocean bed. 
Flung o'er its breast in glances softly tender. 

Down by the pebbled beach that morn we met. 

Met where the lily lifts her milk-white blossom : 
Our hearts were stirred with many a vain regret, 
. And Sorrow dwelt, alike, in either bosom. 

We met, we parted, nevermore to meet. 

Though each had loved the other long and fondly; 

Our pride was such, that from her lofty seat, 
Hope might no longer gaze on either kindly. 

We met, we parted, such as they who part. 

Crushed by despair, and bowed in deep dejection ; 

The only solace, left each bleeding heart. 
Lay coiled within the balm of Recollection. 

That night, what time the moon arose on high. 
And gilt the waves wherein her radiance glistened, 

I strolled with heavy heart, and pensive eye. 
And vainly for her coming footsteps listened. 

Down by the beach where we had met that morn. 
Abject I wandered, lost in contemplation ; 

Across the waves, the bittern's boom was borne. 
Above, the stars had ta'en their wonted station. 

Among the rushes, hidden by the sedge. 
Near to the marge of an out-flowing river. 

Close by the water's weed-encircled edge. 
What is it that my moistened eyes discover r 



73 

It is — O righteous Heaven ! and can it be ? 

Ah me ! It is her form that lies before me ! 
Stand here, and from her marble forehead, see ! 

How the wave drips and falls in plashes o'er me ! 

Closed is the violet of her once bright eye ; 

Fled — the expression of her angel features ; — 
Cold, icy cold, in death I see her lie. 

Yet still the loveliest of Earth's winsome creatures. 

Up from the damp cold beach her form I raised. 
And wrung the water from her wave-wet tresses. 

And into those death-chiseled features gazed. 
And pressed her cheek with passionate caresses, 

I breathed her name, and heard the waves respond, 
I chafed her bloodless hands, beside me lying. 

And spoke of love, in accents soft and bland, 
'Twas all in vain, those lips were past replying. 

Stung by my coldness, she had wandered out 
That morn, and mad with Love's capricious folly. 

Had plunged into the wave, beyond a doubt. 
And closed at once her earthly melancholy. 

Oft as I lay her death-cold lips to mine 
That dreary night, as often did I sorrow 

That Fate had called my darling hence to shine. 
While I was left to hail the coming morrow\ 

Methinks I see her now ; her hueless cheek 

Gleams like a piece of sculpture in its whiteness ; 

Her lips, half-oped, as though she fain would speak. 
Have lost forever their vermilion brightness. 

And there she lay — the cruel waves beside. 

Whose placid currents had engulphed a maiden. 



74 

I would have gladly made my willing bride. 
Had not my soul with jealousy been laden. 

O dark and cheerless Night ! O sullen Lake ! 

O drown^ed Maiden ! well do I remember 
Your doleful aspects, which from life did take 

What else had made bright June of bleak De- 
cember. 

Through star-crovxnied ether sailed the liquid moon. 

And crusted, with her beams, the waves around 

me. 

Whose requiem breathed of one who died too soon. 

To whom Affection's chords had tightly bound 

me. 

Alone I sat — her head upon my knee 

Fell in a shower of gold ; the drooping lashes 

That sealed her eye-lids, rested dreamily 

On cheeks once lit with Joy's ecstatic flashes. 

O me ! could I have slept beside her then 
That sleep unknown to Life's delirious fever. 

My soul, beyond the Night's ingenuous reign. 
Had flown to clasp her kindred soul forever. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE, 

Lift up thy head, O famished soul. 

An hungered for the things of heaven ! 
Beyond where earthly tempests roll. 
Looms bright the everlasting goal 

For which thy feet so long have striven. 



75 

What though around thee tempests beat. 

And hide the sunlight's golden beauty j 
What though the thorns may pierce thy feet, 
And Hope forsake her bosom's seat. 
And Grief submerge the path of Duty. 

Look up, look up, to where the skies 
Are radiant with undying glory ! 

And let their brilliance glad thine eyes. 

Till Death shall sever all the ties 

That bind thee here, a pilgrim hoary. 

Thy path is circumscribed below. 

And long the journey seems, and dreary, 
That leadeth through the gates of Woe, 
Where Sorrow's tear-drops over-flow 
Her lids, and rest forsakes the weary. 

But there shall break at last on thee, 
O soul, the light of joy eternal ; 

When Time and Death have ceased to be, 

And thou shalt sing for ecstasy. 
In climes unfading and supernal ! 



FAIRYLAND 



Encircled by the summer grass. 

On the green sward I lay reclined. 
And watched the clouds, like shadows pass 

Before the breathings of the wind. 
The incensed gales were round me sighing. 
And day from, out the west was dying. 
As on the earth's green bosom lying, 
O'er buried hopes mv soul repined. 

7* 



76 

I loved — who has not felt Love's dart 
Thrill with delicious pain his breast; 

But oh, the idol of my heart. 
Another's image now possessed. 

How much the heart may bear, though broken^ 

Must evermore remain unspoken ; 

I only know love's thrilling token 
No longer either bosom blest. 

At least the token of a love, 

I would have given worlds to win. 
With luster kindled from above. 

No longer shone my soul within. 
So pillowed on the grass around me, 
T thought on other days, that found me 
A captive to the charms which bound me 
In happier hours that once had been. 

Wearied with thought, at length I felt 

A languor overspread my frame ; 
The skies above began to melt. 

As slumber o'er my eyelids cam.e. 
A drowsy murmur, softly floated 
Out from the w^oods, where silver-throated. 
The birds in gleesome carols, gloated 

Beneath the sunlight's roseate flame. 

Lulled by the dewy touch of sleep. 
And cradled 'neath her downy gaze, 

A gauzy film began to creep 

Between my vision and the rays 

That glinted from the brow of even. 

And paved the sun-gilt floor of heaven 

With radiance, so profusely given. 
That earth and sky seemed all ablaze. 



77 

Sudden I woke. A fairy strain 

Of music, ravishingly sweet. 
Stole soothingly into my brain. 

And cooled at once its fevered heat ; 
Fantastic forms before me glided ; 
A gush of laughter, rippling, slided 
From lips where festive mirth abided. 

And joy looked out from his retreat. 

Bewildered and amazed, I turned. 

And gazed upon a radiant scene ; 
The heavens in noonday splendor burned. 
The earth below was draped in green ; 
An ivory palace, girt with roses. 
Whose gold-enameled front reposes 
Beside a lake that round it closes. 

Rose, glistening in its snow-white sheen. 

Exotic blossoms, coyly gave 

Their kisses to the love-lorn winds. 
And stooping o'er the crystal wave, — 
Wherein the sky its image finds, — 
Tall lilies bent, and violets nodded. 
And from its marge, all freshly sodded. 
As if in heaven's own sweets embodied. 
Frankincense stirred the palace-blinds. 

Cool myrtles spread their leafy palms 

Beneath a vault of stainless blue ; 
Filled with the spice of odorous balms. 

Sequestered arbors rose to view ; 
Niched in the music-haunted bowers. 
Fair images, enwreathed with flowers. 
From, their white lips, in sparkling showers, 
Fond Nature's liquid crystal threw. 



78 

Through shady vistas, where the sun 

Wrinkled with wavy light the ground, 
A graveled pathway straight begun. 

And wound the olived hills around ; 
Fruit, luscious to behold, before me. 
Hung clustering on the branches o'er me. 
Flushed with the Summer's ripened glory. 
And with her choicest blushes crowned. 

Purple and scarlet-breasted birds 

Flew in and out among the groves. 
And timid deer, in scattered herds. 

Browsed in the woodland's sheltered coves ; 
And gaudy insects, gaily sifted 
From silken winglets, skyward lifted, 
A golden-powdered dust, that drifted 
Belov^, upon the enamored doves. 

It was a gorgeous sight ; each breath 
Of air seemed laden with the sighs 

Of whispering love; above, beneath. 

From sun-bathed earth to rose-hued skies, 

A universal song of gladness. 

Unmixed with one lone touch of sadness. 

Rose, thrilling with harmonious madness 
The soul, out-gushing from the eyes. 

Green vales lay bowered among the trees. 
Where the glad waters of the brook. 

Dimpling beneath the sportive breeze. 
Their journey 'mid the daisies took ; 

Far off, eternally anointed 

With cloudy mists, the mountains pointed 

Their sky-dissolving peaks, undaunted. 
Into the eye of day to look. 



79 

Hard by, upon a shaven lawn. 

Beneath a palm-tree's glossy shade. 
With cheeks as ruddy as the dawn, 

A band of nymphs mine eyes surveyed ; 
These woodland fays, beside me sporting. 
Joined hands, and gracefully assorting 
Themselves around my form, seemed courting 
The breezes which about them played. 

Some from the petals of the rose 

Came shyly issuing forth ; the boughs 
Of orange-cinctured groves enclose 

Some fair as Adam's blushing spouse ; 
Crov/ding the palace-dome, whose brightness 
Outshone the marble's snowy whiteness. 
Myriads of fays reposed, whose lightness 
Of fabric, India's shuttle throws. 

At once this lightsome, elfin crew. 

Sped from their resting places nigh. 
And circling round and round me, flew. 

Out-breathing softest melody ; 

Their tiny wings above me glancing. 

Retreating now, and now advancing. 

As if with amorous zephyr dancing. 

Hid for a while the jocund sky. 

Their revels ceased, they arched the spot 

In which I lay, each over each. 
Building for me the loveliest grot 

That tongue could syllable in speech ; 
Dropping the spice of myrrh and aloes 
From perfumed urns, in cloudy billows. 
Where earth my prostrate being pillows. 

And heaven's glad beams my forehead reach. 



80 

Soothed by their music-warbled strains. 

The memory of my bitter past. 
No longer now my soul retains. 

By hope its blackness thence is cast ; 
And as I listened, new-born splendor 
Despair's bleak midnight served to render 
A dawn of light, so softly tender. 

That Grief out-wailed her funeral blast. 

Died out the burning memory 

Of silken curls, and crimson cheeks ; 

Died out the bosom's swelling sigh. 
When Love her darling votary seeks ; 

Soft eyes, fond looks, and downcast lashes. 

As soul to soul in rapture flashes. 

Enkindling hopes, that turn to ashes 
Before the lapse of many weeks. 

Gently the dews of slumber stole 
Upon my forehead, and I slept ; 

The sounds of music ceased to roll 
Into my ears where sleep had crept ; 

Woods, meadows, fairies, lake and palaee. 

The rose's dewy-crested chalice, 

Hope's morning light, and hatred's malice 
Vanished ; the v/eb of thought v/as sv^'ept. 

I wake, above me blink the stars. 

The moon hath sunk beneath yon hill. 
As from the present's dungeon bars. 

Sad Memory gazeth backward still : 
I rise, and homeward slov/ returning. 
Beneath the stars above me burning. 
To elf-land, many a wistful yearning 
I cast ; its dreams my bosom thrill. 



81 
WAITIN G. 

Somewhat off from the brow of the river. 

Miles away from the dust of the town. 
Where the tremulous rays of the starlight quiver. 

Huge rocks of granite look sternly down. 
Forever the moan of the pitiless tide. 

Forever the beat of the surface ascendeth 
From those gray cliffs by the river's side. 

Over which the bow of the Deluge bendeth. 

There, through the heat of the fierce midsummer 

The torrid beams of the sunlight beat ; 
Thence arises a soothing murmur 

From weaves that encircle that place of retreat ; 
Thither the angler is wont to resort. 

And lazily dips, in the water beside him. 
His hook and line for an evening's sport. 

Till the blaze of the sunset serves to chide him. 

Oft as the Day begins to sprinkle 

His wealth of gold from his throne on high. 
And the wooing breeze of the eve to crinkle 

The waters beneath that. ripple by, 
I loosen my boat from its moorings, and swing 

Out on the breast of the river before me. 
And ply my oars, till those gray rocks fling 

Their friendly shadows around and o'er me. 

I clam.ber their moss-fringed summits, and listen 
To the musical chime that upswells from below. 

And outward, to where the white sails glisten, 
I gaze, till the tears on my cheeks filter slow 

Through the hands which are pressing a soul-ach- 
ing brow. 



82 

And pillow a forehead, whose cold drops of an- 
guish 
Stand icily beaded thereon even now. 

As I think of the one for whom Memory must 
languish. 

Out on the horizon, like some lone sentry 

Left standing to guard the expanse of the waves, 
Tosses the buoy, where the vessel m.akes entry. 

Whose sides, ribbed of oak,the blue current laves. 
Beyond me, the bellying canvas unfolds 

Its pinions of snow to the breezes forever. 
But the sail of the one whom my fancy beholds. 

How vainly my vision I strain to discover ! 

Three years since his vessel out-sailed have de- 
parted — 
Three years — but they seem like a century to me. 
Since then, ah ! how often the tear-drop has started. 
As I've watched for his bark coming home from 
the sea. 
O ! tell me ye winds that once bore from his lips 
The tenderest words that a mortal could utter. 
Has the ocean engulphed him, along with the ships 
Whose sails never more in the breezes shall 
flutter ? 

Alas ! even now on the floor of the ocean. 

Shell girdled, and strewn with the rarest of pearls. 
Perchance he may lie, while the sea's gentle motion 

Sways backward and forward his clustering curls : 
Near him the coral reef lifts to the sun 

Its pinnacled columns, sunk deep in the water ; 
And o'er his pale features, when day's orb is gone. 

The lingering light of the sunset may loiter. 



83 

Still are his lips, and the blush ot' the morning 

Crimsons no longer the snow of his cheek ; 
Madly the storm dashes past, as if scorning 

My love, for whose form it were fruitless to seek : 
Peaceful he sleeps in the depths of the main. 

Safe from the ruinous breath of the billows ; 
Ne'er shall these arms feel his pressure again. 

For to-day the rank sea-grass his cold forehead 
pillows. 

Over his bosom the waters are drifting 

Rare gems that bediamond those caverns below ; 
Mixed with the sands, that are evermore shifting. 

As the swell of the sea bears them on in its flow : 
Above him, the plash of the v/aves breathes aloud 

A sorrowing dirge for the one whom they cover ; 
A requiem for him whom the surges enshroud. 

And moan in despair o'er the form of mv lover. 

'Round him the fragments of ages encumber 

The deep, in whose bosom slow falls to decay 
The wreck of sunk vessels, perchance beyond 
number. 

Crumbling disjointedly, piece-meal away. 
Rent canvas o'er-shadows the place of his rest ; 

Loose cordage envelops his limbs in its tangles. 
And over his arms, which are crossing his breast. 

The ruin of jib-boom and mizzen-mast dangles. 

What though the growl of the thunder be shaking 
The dome of the welkin, high over his bed. 

And the mariner's heart in the tempest be quaking, 
As the lightning illumines the breakers ahead; 

He recks not of wind, nor of wave, though the deep 
Be lashed into fury, and howl in its madness ; — 
8 



84 

Where the storm is unknown he hath fallen asleep. 
While I sit alone and lament him in sadness. 

What matters it now though the pavement beneath 
him 
Gleam bright with the treasures which speckle 
the sea; 
No matter though scepter and crown should en- 
wreathe him 
With jewels, the fairest that mortal may see. 
Serenely he slumbers, while over his tomb 

The homeward-bound vessels glide swiftly to 
port; 
But never the sail of my darling will come. 
To gladden Life's future, my vision athwart. 

Daily the Morning imprints on the bosom 

Of ocean her freshest of kisses, whose waves. 
Kindling with blushes, seem fearful to lose 'em. 

And heedlessly toss o'er the mariner's graves ; 
Daily the Evening steals solemnly on. 

And plucks from the heavens their golden-hued 
splendor ; 
But the breast of my love, who reposes alone. 

Will bathe nevermore in its radiance so tender. 

So on the rocks, when the day is declining, 

I sit, and behold, towards the offing afar. 
The ships, with their sails in the sun's glances 
shining. 

Glide noiselessly over the harbor bar ; 
But the keel of the one who is niched in my heart. 

Ah ! when will it ruffle the breast of the river ? 
The bosom may bleed, and the tear-drop may start. 

But the sail of mv lover hath vanished forever. 



85 
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 

Illustrious Bard ! whose genius hath illumed 
Thy country's pages with a deathless name ; 

Thou glorious Minstrel, whose glad harp perfumed 
With Nature's balmiest incense, breathes the 
flame 

Of Inspiration, thee I sing, proud child of Fame. 

Thou art the one whose song can melt the soul, 
Suffuse the eye with Recollection's tears. 

And bid the curtains from the past to roll. 

And lead the listener back to childhood's years. 

And shed around his brow the smile that Beauty 
wears. 

How can I sing of thee in fitting strain, . 

Thou noblest offspring of the muses ? I, 
Whose soul so oft hath drank thy sweet refrain. 

And listened to the witching melody 
That rippled from thy lyre, as hour on hour slipped 
by. 

Thine is a forest-loving muse, whose joy 
Is in the depths of shady woods to dwell. 

And feed on pleasures which can never cloy. 
That spring from many a fountain's mossy cell, 

And crown with fadeless bloom, grove, dingle, 
glade and fell. 

With thee how oft at morning I have strolled 
Across the dewy fields to greet the dawn ; 

With thee, when sunset tinged the hills with gold. 
Have seen the twilight's purple robe withdrawn. 

And heard the robin pipe his farewell to the sun. 



86 

Once more with thee at twilight's hour I stand, 
And view the dusky phantoms of the past 

Go trooping by me from the spirit land. 
Till darkness over all the skies is cast. 

And through the rifted clouds the starlight looks 
aghast. 

L pon the bosom of my parent Earth, 
x-ln alien to repose, my limbs recline ; 

I hear her solemn voice, which since the birth 
Of centuries, has ceased not to repine 

At man's misdeeds, breathed up from her polluted 
shrine. 

Alone, upon the prairies of the West, 
I guide my steed till ruddy Day expires. 

And muse on those, who long since laid to rest 
Beside the generations of their sires. 

Now roam the fields divine, beyond the sunset's fires. 

Again, upon Italia's mountain nights. 

Mine eye surveys that classic region o'er. 

Where feudal ages poured in bloody fights 
Life's rain along the Adriatic's shore. 

And Tiber's waves still flow where Cssars dwelt 
of yore. 

Thy pencil paints the season's varied charms 
In faultless colors ; Spring's soft lips of balm ; 

The bloom which Summer folds within her arms ; 
The sunburnt Autumn's melancholy calm. 

And Winter, chanting low, sad Nature's funeral 
psalm. 

Thv sweetly pensive lyre hath made the dead 
To speak in tones more eloquent than speech ; 



87 

Beside their flowering urns my steps are led. 

As listening to the truths they seem to teach. 
Into the world beyond, my spirit strives to reach. 

Im.mortal Visitant from song's domains. 

How have I loved thy music-breathing shell. 

Where Love and Beauty, into melting strains 
Of perfect euphony, commingled swxll ; 

And Sorrow, Hope and Joy, their touching accents 
tell. 



Hail glorious Fram.er of a matchless verse ! 

Sing on, sing ever, though thy locks be gray ! 
Thy num-bers, whether gleesome, grave or terse. 

Proclaim thee Master of the minstrel's lay. 
And we thy fellow bards, feel proud to own thy 



THE DESERTED CHAMBER. 

Alone I paced the silent room 

From which my Hopes had flown forever ; 
And like the sobbing of a river. 
Whose weaves along its margin quiver, 

Grief filled me with her voice of gloom. 

I could not weep, but yet my heart. 
Charged to the brim, was overflowing ; 
The fires of Hope had ceased their glowing. 
And Memory's page alone w^as showing 

Bliss, slain bv Death's envenomed dart. 
8* 



The embers on the darkening hearth 
In fitful flashes were expiring ; 
Ah ! how like them, with flame untiring. 
Had Love my bosom's depths been firing. 

Till now her light had fled from Earth. 

Oat from the dark old oaken portal. 

There drifted, straight before mv vision. 
The one whose soul to fields Elysian 
Had fled from Envy's proud derision. 

To bathe her plumes in ravs immortal. 

Along the wainscot in the hall, • 

Weird shadows 'mid the gloom were playing 
With lips half-opened, as if praying, 
I stood in agony, surveying 

Her painted image on the wall. 

Crossing the door-sill, thence my feet 
Up the long staircase slowly wandered. 
As bowed within myself, I pondered 
On ties, all rudely snapped and sundered. 

That once had rendered life so sweet. 

Through chamber after chamber, pressed 
With nameless fears I passed in sorrow ; 
Alas ! for me no bright to-morrow 
Fresh beams from future suns would borrow. 

To rouse new hopes within my breast. 

Night 'round my brow her mantle threw ; 

Oppressive silence reigned beside me ; 

The very stillness seemed to chide m^e ; 

Alone the starlight served to guide me 
That shone the casement's lattice through. 



89 

No foot-fall broke the solemn calm 

That brooded o'er that place of sadness ; 
Though driven to the verge of madness. 
No solitary ray of gladness 

Shed in my soul its healing balm. 

Alone, the echo of my shoes 

Disturbed that mansion's desolation, 
As lost in mournful contemplation. 
The casement, near, I took my station. 

Upon the tragic past to muse. 

In vain the incense-freighted winds 

Bore from beneath, the breath of flowers 
That blossomed in the garden bowers, 
Distilling, 'mid the perfumed hours. 

Their odor through the window blinds. 

In vain the flashing orbs of Night 

Dropped on the earth their silvery plashes. 
Bespattering all the casement sashes. 
Rained dow^n in sparkles, jewel bright. 

And on the star-bathed elms and ashes. 

Before my tearless vision rose 

Her empty chair, and close beside it. 
The lounge, to which so oft we glided ; 
Whereon, with hand in hand confided. 

We'd sit till evening's dewy close. 

Her dusty table, where the rays 

From Midnight's jeweled forehead glistened ; 

Her wardrobe, that my tears had christened ; 

Her harp, to which so oft I'd listened ; 
All thronged on my despairing gaze. 



90 

No longer would her velvet hand 
Thrill with its tenderest caressing 
My heart-strings as of yore, while pressing 
Her peach-blown lips to mine. Possessing 

Such bliss. Love waved o'er each his wand. 

"O God," I moaned, **and am I doomed 
To live when heaven-born Love is perished 
The-Hopes that once my bosom cherished, 
No longer now by Fortune nourished. 

Are with the one I love, entombed." 

Thus while I held a solemn tryst 
With my own agony of spirit. 
Which seemed too great for me to bear it, 
A voice, so faint, 1 scarce could hear it. 

Whispered within, and bade me list. 

Upon the instant, all the room 

Was deluged with a mellow splendor ; 
Melodious strains, divinely tender. 
Enchained the winds, and served to render 

Less dark, my soul-depressing gloom. 

I felt the brush of angel wings. 

And saw their shining forms before me ; 
They sifted, from their censers o'er me, 
A fragrance, which the zephyrs bore me. 

That sweetened Sorrow's bitter springs. 

At once my anguish melted down ; 

My soul for gladness fairly shouted : — 
Joy ! joy ! the fiend Despair was routed. 
And blear-eyed Grief forever scouted. 

And life had lost its ebon frown. 



9] 

just as the morning flushed the east. 

The heavenly vision straight departed ;- 
But now, no longer sorrow-hearted, 
A nobler, purer life has started 

To being, in my opening breast. 

So as the sunshine gilds the skies, 

Hope, to my rapturous gaze, discloses 
A land of never-fading roses. 
Where she I love in bliss reposes. 

Beside the streams of paradise. 



THE DYING DAY. 



The day sinks languidly afar. 

Reclining on a couch of roses. 
And evening ushers in her star. 
On which the eye of love reposes. 
His farewell flight 
On wings of light. 
Day's monarch takes, and twilight closes 
O'er field, and vale, and mountain hight. 

A tremulously golden haze 

Floods with its island rifts of glory. 
Where, opening on the enchanted gaze. 
The west its radiance rolls before me : 
From cloud to cloud, 
A crimson shroud 
Of brightness skirts the concave o'er me. 
Within whose beams the heavens are bowed ! 

How grandly sinks the purple swell 
Of ether's carmine-painted billows ! 



92 

Too gloriously for tongue to tell. 
Majestic Day his forehead pillows 
In stately rest 
On Twilight's breast. 
While underneath, the tearful willows 
Lament the Earth's departed guest ! 

Outstretching far into the sea. 

Tall headlands, in the sunset burning. 
Dipped in its dying brilliancy. 

Seem welcoming the Night's returning 
From forest glades 
His glory fades, 
And fled, beyond our fruitless yearning. 
Day dies amid the deepening shades. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

Lo ! on the mountain top she takes her stand. 

And plants her banner on its loftiest peak. 
And scatters from the hollow of her hand. 

Auroral beams to paint the orient's cheek. 
And flingeth over all the sm.iling land 
Beneath her sun-kissed pinions, light and bloom. 
And drowns the Night in ocean's billowy gloom. 

The Midnight owns her presence, when the skies 
Are lit with dazzling luster, and the Earth 

Smiles in the glad effulgence ; whence arise 
Fresh sounds and aspects, ushered into birth 

Beneath the brightly scintillating eyes 

That twinkle from the heavens, and Night's fair 
robe 

Illumines with its brilliance half the globe. 



If thou woLildst view her in her loveliest guise. 
Go forth, when Day is crimsoning the west, 
And dewy Evening's mellow symphonies 

Float upward, toward the islands of the blest. 
The azure-tinted clouds impearl the skies. 
And all along the western arch is rolled 
Waves of vermilion, flecked with sunset's gold. 



THE SPIRIT OF SUBLIMiTY, 

She plows the seething billows of the Deep, 
And rides upon the bosom of the storm ; 

She wakes the whirlwind from his couch of sleep. 
And lays her hand on ocean's slumbering form ; 

The sable-curtained clouds in sadness weep ; 

The lightning forks the thunder-riven dome. 

And Dian lies engulfed within the foam. 

She speaks, and lo, the clang of war resounds ! 

Grim Battle lights his beacons on the hills. 
From crag to crag, with eager step, he bounds. 

Empurpling with his crimson blood the rills. 
Hark to the deep-mouthed baying of the hounds. 
By reeking Carnage loosened on the foe. 
Fast dealing out his vengeance, blow on blow ! 

She loves to dwell in solitude, alone. 

Where never mortal foot hath pressed the sod. 
And piles around her many a flinty stone. 

And chalky cliff, the eagle's dread abode. 
There, when the trumpets of the storm are blown. 
She flings her raven tresses to the beeeze. 
And strides those cloud- washed peaks in solemn ease. 



94 

Behold her Iris, spanning with its bow 

The wave-descending cataract, whose roar 
Has thrilled the by-gone ages until now ! 

Eternal as the hills, its waters pour 
Their pillared columns in unceasing flow. 
Till the mossed rocks, worn by the floods away. 
Lie shattered underneath the falling spray. 



THE RETROSPECT. 

I have come yet once again to stray. 
Where I roamed in childhood the livelong day ; 
To wander the upland, and traverse the glen. 
Remote from the dusty old dwellings of men. 
Where I gamboled in youth on the soft green grass, 
Or watched the fleece of the cloudlets pass. 
As over the face of the broad blue sky. 
On noiseless pinions they flitted by. 

Since then, full many a year has fled. 

And the friends of my childhood are long since 

dead ; 
But ever backward, I turn my gaze 
To the mellowing light of my boyhood's days ; 
For there lingers about them a halo and bloom 
That robs the present of half its gloom. 
And restores to my yearning arms once more. 
The loved ones passed to a brighter shore. 

Adown the vista of vanished years. 

The past in its brightest of luster appears. 

As Memory holds to my tear-dimmed eye 

Her glass, wherein scenes that have long gone by 

Are mirrored, and pass before my sight. 

Like star-gems shot from the plumes of Night. 



95 

Lo ! there is the self-same grove of trees. 
In which I've sat, when the evening breeze 
Blew cool o'er the gelid breast of the brook. 
As the sunset's radiance began to look 
For its rosy image within the wave. 
Flushed with the smile that its parting gave. 

There is the wood, through which my feet 
Have often passed, as the noontide beat 
In fervid beams on the scorching leaves. 
Where the plumbed warbler his love-song weaves. 
And where the sound of my youthful voice 
Has made the summer winds rejoice. 

Amid their foliage at day's decline. 

As home I've followed my father's kine. 

My hands have plucked from the boughs, o'erhead. 

The clustering fruit of the grape-vine, red 

With the blush of ripeness, and temptingly hung 

Where the oriole's nest perchance was swung ; 

And then as the stars came out in the sky. 

And the woods were filled with the owlet's cry. 

And the dews began to moisten the ground. 

And pale Night drew her curtains around, 

I've mused alone 'mid the forest aisles, 

'Till the queen of Night, with her lambent smiles. 

Threw a chastened charm o'er the shadowy spot. 

When I've pillowed my head in repose on ray cot. 

There, through the branches of cedar and birch, 
lean see the house, with its ivied porch. 
In which the spring of my life was passed, 
'Mid scenes that were far too enchanting to last. 
There is the orchard, the barn-yard, and there 
The garden beyond, whence out- floats on the air, 
9 



96 

A fragrant deliciousness, sweeter by far. 
To me, than the perfumes of Lebanon are. 

O days of my childhood, too blissful to stay. 
As a dream of the night ye have vanished awRy ; 
Alone from the shadow of Memory's halls. 
Your scenes of endearment my spirit recalls; 
Yet still in the sunlight of days that have flown. 
Delighted I bask while the present moves on ; 
For those were the happiest days of my life. 
With melody, sunshine and innocence rife. 
And my bosom is filled with a fulness of joy. 
Which the present can neither remove nor destroy. 
As eagerly backward my glances I cast. 
To gaze on the light whidk illumines the past. 



MARABELLA. 



She left me in the summer's prime. 

Full many a weary year ago. 
To dwell within a distant clime 
Above these nether fields of time. 
Beyond this realm of sun and snow. 

Yet oft when twilight wraps the globe 

In her dun cloak of sable hue. 
And weary Day flings by his robe 
Of light, to sleep till life shall throb 
At morn within his veins anew ; 

I feel her clasping hand in mine ; 

She murmurs in my willing ear 
Those thrilling accents, "I am thine !" 
Till from Affection's sacred shrine 

Hope drives the demon of Despair. 



97 

'Tis many summer months gone by, 

I stole to Marabella's bower. 
And there, beneath the crimson sky. 
On bended knees, with tearful eye, 

I wooed her at the sunset hour. 

She took my hand and bade me rise. 

And like the melody of birds,— 
With love out-gushing from her eyes. 
And cheeks as radiant as the skies,-- 
Came the soft music of her words. 

Those words— they haunt my spirit still— 
''Thine love till death!" oh never yet 

Hath language served my breast to fill 

With feelings so unutterable. 

As that which I shall ne'er forget ! 

My heart was full— I could not speak ; 

But pressed the fair one to my side ; 
And on the damask of her cheek. 
My lips a vengeance seemed to wreak 

For all the bliss her words supplied. 

<'0 thou fond virgin of my choice," 
At length I cried, "in thee alone,_ 

Since thou hast given my heart a voice. 

Will it forevermore rejoice ; 

Thy love, my scepter, crown and throne. 

Then giving her one last embrace. 

And moistening with my lips her own, 
I left the sunshine of her face, 
Whose beams had lit our trysting place 
With light, that dazzled as it shone. 



98 

Night came and went ; the morning's beam 
Shone bright on Nature's lap outspread. 

When like the whisper of a dream, 

I heard my Marabella's name, 

And learned, O God, that she was dead ! 

Beside my open lattice stood 

Her maid, who beckoned from below. 
And bade me follow ; — forth I strode. 
Out from the place of my abode. 

Speechless and tearless in my woe. 

Down through the wood, and past the brook, 

Encurtained by the forest leaves. 
My way with faltering steps I took. 
Till from its vale-sequestered nook, 
I spied her dwelling's moss-clad eaves. 

Nerveless and faint, I gained the door. 

Passed through the hall, and sped my way 
Along the stairs ; nor paused before 
I reached my loved one's chamber floor. 
And stood where Marabella lay. 

Stood, gazing on the dear, dear face 

Which nevermore would gaze on m.e ; 
Aweary of its onward race. 
Her soul had left its earthly place. 
And risen, evermore to be. 

Clay-cold her cheek ; clay-cold her brow ; 

Clay-cold her form, and icy chill ; 
That heart had ceased its beating now ; 
Those eyes had lost their wonted glow ; 

Those lips forevermore were still. 



99 

O'erwhelmed with grief too great too bear. 
And crushed, and sick at heart, I turned. 
And left the dead one slumbering there. 
And staggered forth I cared not where. 
Since Hope and Love were both inurned. 

Near by, the robin sang his lay. 

The blue-jay whistled on the tree. 
The mock-bird caroled from the spray. 
And all the world seemed blithe and gay 
With laugh, and song, and mirth, but me. 

Lost in the night of my despair, 
I sank upon the grass, that threw 

Its sweetness on the morning air. 

And lifting up my soul in prayer, 
I prayed as mortals seldom do. 

**Father," I cried, beseechingly, 

**Now that my all of hope is gone, 

O send me succor from the sky. 

Or take me to thyself on high. 

Yet, not my will, but thine be done !" 

Years slipped away— my prayer was heard ; 

Since often at the twilight hour. 
My bosom's depths are inly stirred 
By many a softly-warbled word. 

That' greets my ear from Eden's bower. 

So when the sunset floods the west 

With glory from the heavens unrolled, 
I wait, to feel within my breast 
The bliss of seeing one, whose rest 
Lies in the streets inlaid with gold. 
9* 



100 

Wait to enclasp her hand, and hear 
Her angel accents thrill my soul ; 
Wait till her snow-white plumes shall bear 
My spirit from this realm of care. 
To where seraphic anthems roll. 

Thank God ! Life's sands are nearly run. 
Slow-dropping through the glass of Time 

Thank God ! the gates are almost won, — 

Beyond the threshold of the sun. 

Light dawns from Love's celestial clime. 

Fly swift ye few remaining days ! 

I long to wrench my fetters free. 
And soar 'mid heaven's unclouded blaze. 
And bask in Love's undying rays 

With one m.ore dear than life to me. 



DREAMLAND 



Swing open from the realm of dreams. 
Ye gates of slum.ber, vv^hich enclose 
A land of softly murmuring streams, 

A clime where sunset's radiance glov.-s ! 
Your doors of crystal sheen, unbar. 
Ye dreams, that I may wander far 
Within your m.ystical domain. 
Bright with the hues of summer's reign I 

Lift from the lids, which seal mine eye. 

The filmy coverlid of sleep. 
Fond visions of the night, that I 

With vou mv wonted watch m.ay keep ! 



101 

upon your downy pinions bear 
My spirit from a world of care. 
To realms, irradiate with delight, 
Unhaunted by the ghost of Night. 

Sunk in the bosom of repose. 

And girdled by the arms of rest. 
My weary eyes I faintly close. 

And still the throbbings of my breast. 
Lo ! on my jov-enraptured gaze. 
The hues of Iris gleam and blaze. 
For yonder lies the land of dreams. 
Bathed in the noontide's liquid beams. 

There rise its bark-encircled trees. 

Its emerald woods of changeless hue ; 
There, from afar, my vision sees, 

O'erarching all, its dome of blue. 
Birds of rare plumage flutter by. 
And freight the winds with melody. 
Which bear, from sun-bespangled bowers. 
The spiced aroma of the flowers. 

O pleasant land of pleasant scenes 

Unknown to Day's impoverished sight. 
Escaped from all that intervenes 

Betwixt my spirit and the night. 
Again with joyful haste I stray 
Beneath the sunlight of your sway ; 
Glad to survey the roseal charms 
Which slum.ber holds within her arms. 

Hark ! from the depths of yonder vale. 
The bubbling runlet seaward glides. 

And born upon the perfumed gale. 
Music out-rolls in gushing tides. 



102 

The clouds, that fringe the heavens in love. 
Smile sweetly from those hights above. 
As if 'twere joy, 'mid scenes like these. 
To linger in perpetual ease. 

And she, — the summer of my bliss. 
The noonday of my pleasure, — she. 

For whom affection's warmest kiss 
Is bathed in tears of ecstasy ; — 

Wanders with me from vale to hill. 

Led by my own capricious will. 

Till seated in yon whispering grove. 

We clasp the object of our love. 

Aud they, the loved of other years. 

Again their forms appear to view. 
There stands my sire, whose whitened hairs 

The dallying breezes wave anew ; 
There, gazing on her child, I see 
The mother of mine infancy. 
Above whose grassy mound of sleep 
I've often bowed my head to weep. 

That scene departs ; I stand alone, 

Grief-stricken, in a darkened room ; 
Before me gleams the face of one. 

Death-smitten in her girlish bloom. 
Mute eyes ! mute lips ! mute soul ! away. 
Grim vision of the Night, now stay 
To mock me with despair like this. 
And banish all my fancied bliss ! 

Swing open from the land of dreams. 
Ye gates of slumber, which enclose 

A clime where Hope enshrouds her beams. 
And sorrow like a river flows ! 



103 

From scenes like these, oh let me hence 
Scenes, fraught with such significance ; 
Unbar, ye doors ! I fain would go. 
Out from this realm of gloom and woe. 



A REQUIEM FOR THE DYIMQ YEAR, 

(IIIREGULAU.) 

Alas ! the year is dying. 

Alone, and in the night ; — 
In a leafless mantle lying, 

Cold his shroud, and ghastly white. 

The year is fading from our sight. 

All alone, and in the night. 

O'er his death-bed chilly. 

The wailing zephyrs moan ; 
In piercing accents, shrilly. 

From Arctic caverns hastening on. 

The muttering tempest swells in tone. 

And shuddering, maketh moan. 

The icy brook replyeth 

To the trees that bend above ; 

The shivering woodland sigheth 

To the stars, which look with eyes of love 
Through the naked branches of the grove 
From their palatial hights above. 

Hark ! from the village tov/cr 

The Midnight lifts her voice ! 
It is the solemn hour 

When Death shall claim his choice, 

•And bid the grave rejoice. 

In stilling the old ye^'s voice. 



104 

Wail ! wail ! ye winds in sorrow. 

And plaintively bemoan 
For him, on whom the morrow 

Rayless and cold shall dawn ! 

Alas! the year is gone. 

Ye breezes, sigh and moan ! 

Gone is the spring he nourished ; 
His summer lieth dead ; 

His autumn long hath perished ; 
Alone, above his cypressed bed. 
His winter's frozen tears are shed 
For his poor sire who lieth dead. 

The skies are veiled in mourning, 
The Earth is black with grief; 

All consolation scorning. 
The tempest seeks relief. 
In wailings, loud though brief. 
By which to tell his grief. 

Old year, adieu, forever ! 

Well may our hearts grow sad. 
Since thy loved face will never 

Our sorrowing bosoms glad. 

To lose what joy we've had 

With thee our hearts are sad. 

A light has left creation, 

Now that the year is gone ; 
^Moan in your desolation, 
•Ye sobbing zephyrs moan ! 
Out through the gates of dawn. 
The deacUold year is gone. 



105 
A SUMMER MORNINGS RAMBLE. 

Now morning breaks upon the hills ; 
The woods are jubilant with song. 
And echo to the feathered throng. 

Whose music Earth's glad bosom fills. 

The zephyrs, on their laden wings, 
Aurora's sweetest incense bear. 
As radiantly bright and fair. 

Day from his couch of slumber springs. 

The orient sparkles in the light. 

Which Phoebus, from his throne on high, 
Pours through the chambers of the sky, 

Erst mantled in the pall of Night. 

Off to the verdure of the fields ! 

My soul, 'mid such a scene as this. 
Would gladly revel in the bliss 

Which Nature to her votaries yields. 

Around my pathway, starred with flowers. 
The sky-blue violet lifts her head ; 
The virgin lily, and the red 

Carnation fringe the way-side bowers. 

Implanted there by one I love. 

Their beauty chains my ravished eye. 
But oh ! were that beloved one nigh. 

Far greater charms my breast would move. 

On, through the twilight of the woods. 
With bounding step I take my way ! 
Above, the linnet trills his lay. 

And fills with joy these solitude^ 



106 

Fretting and fuming down the rocks. 
The brook's pellucid wavelets glide. 
While near its margin's mossy side. 

The shepherd tends his father's flocks. 

From woody dells, and grassy lanes. 
Clothed in a drapery of green. 
And brilliant with the sunlight's sheen, 

I list the mock-bird's matin strains. 

O'er sylvan glades my pathway lies. 
Still glittering with its nightly dew ; 
Close by, the squirrel starts to view, 

O'erhead, the pheasant mounts the skies. 

From groves of cedar, on the wind^ 
Out-rings the woodman's sturdy stroke 
The lizard, on yon prostrate oak. 

Lies in the sun's warm beams reclined. 

Still on I wander, through the dale 
Sprinkled with cowslips, and inlaid 
With daisies, which from hill to glade 

Bespread, and cover all the vale. 

Now having gained the shaggy brow 
Of rugged hills, I set me down 
To gaze on Nature's face, alone. 

Bathed in the morning's ruddy glow. 

Below, on my dilated gaze, 

Upswells a scene of varied hue. 
And bursts, on my enraptured view, 

A sight more fair thyi sunset's blaze. 



107 

Afar, till with the horizon blent. 

Woods rise on woods, and hills on hills ; 
Out-flashing thence, unnumbered rills 

Unroll their waters, seaward sent. 

Fields, crowned with bearded wheat and rye, 
And white with clover, lie between ; 
Fields, where the tasseled maize is seen 

Beneath the morning's lustrous ey?. 

Oh let me often to these hills. 

And breathe the exhilarating breath 
Of dawn, while upland, vale and heath, 

To its ecstatic music thrills. 



For health, and strength, and light, and life 
Belong to morning's blissful hour ; 
Her's is the consecrated power 

To still the mind's internal strife. 



THE DYING POET. 



The orb of day had burnished all the west. 
As pillowed on his couch a poet lay. 

With life, slow ebbing from his sunken breast. 
And eyes that beamed with intermittent ray : 

Impatient for his long-expected guest. 

Grim Death stood near, in all his stern array, 

A silent listener to the words which broke 

From lips he soon would muffle in his cloak. 
10 



108 

"Alas ! and I must die," the bard began. 

In accents, fraught with griePs intensest woe. 

While down his pallid cheeks the tear drops ran, 
Enmoistening with their brine his couch below : 

*'Life, Hope and Love, heaven's dearest gifts to 
man ; 
Alas ! must I relinquish these, and go 

To dwell imprisoned in the realms of Night, 

Forever barred from Day's impartial light ! 

"And Fame, upon whose highest crag I stood. 
Laughing at those who crept below in scorn ; 

Deeming the stars, that 'round my forehead glowed. 
More bright than those which midnight's brow 
adorn — 

Alas ! her smiles that once seemed Iris-hued, 
Out from my -breast the hands of Death have 
borne ; 

No longer shall her syren voice impart 

Its wonted thrill of gladness to my heart. 

"Ah me ! the zenith of my hopes as yet 

Is scarcely gained, when I must lay me down 

To slumber, while successive ages wet 

The sod about my grave-mound, grass o'ergrown. 

With heaven's dissolving tears, till men forget 
The very name of him who lies alone. 

Wrapped in the m.antle of perpetual sleep. 

As unborn centuries o'er my dust shall creep. 

"No more for me those rambles I have ta'en. 
When chaste Diana, from the moonlit sicies. 

Poured on the woods a shower of silver rain. 
Within whose shade fond lovers breathed their 
sighs; 



109 

Or when the stars, in Night's liquescent train. 

Looked from the heavens with contemplative eyes. 
And on the laden winds. Night's peerless bird. 
To trill her descant, wildly sweet, was heard. 

*'Ah ! those were seasons when my bounding heart' 
Danced with the leaves around me in its joy ! 

Now Death therein hath fixed his venomed dart. 
And pitilessly threatens to destroy 

All its imagined happiness ; to part 

From which, though mixed wath some of earth's 
alloy. 

Gives to my soul a double death to diC; 

And fills me with a nameless agony. 

"Oft have I roamed at morning's starless hour. 
When but the redbreast warbled from the brake. 

Within some woodland's unfrequented bower. 
Or by the bosom of some beauteous lake ; 

Thrilled with the essence of an unseen powder. 
And stirred by thoughts, my lips would strive to 
speak. 

As in my breast, Apollo's spirit, rife 

With innate music, struggled into life. 

"How oft my feet, through sun-beholding glades. 
And twilight-brooding valleys, where the trees 

Forever cast their immemorial shades. 
Have wandered, till the aromatic breeze 

Fanned me to rest, as down among the blades 
Of grass around, reclining at my case. 

Beneath the skies, I've cushioned in repose 

My wearied head, and slept till twilighl's close. 

"All things in Nature were my friends, I knew 
Each object of her manifold domain. 



no 

Though radiated by the sunlight's hue. 
Or at the pensive hour of midnight seen ; 

All beamed alike on my unclouded view. 

And charmed me v/ith their splendors not in vain. 

Since oft to please the eager-listening throng. 

My tuneful lyre hath wove them into song. 

**Full many an intoxicating draught 

My soul hath drunk from Heliconia's stream. 

And with the Nine, who throng Olympia, laughed 
And wantoned ; deeming life a golden dream. 

Or fount, v/hose waves were only to be quaffed 
By those who like myself had felt the beam 

Of inspiration in their bosom's core. 

Enkindling bliss and hopes unknown before. 

*'Rocks, mountains, rivers, woodlands, earth and 
sky. 

All were my boon companions ; I did love 
To gaze on Nature when the storm was nigh. 

And shed upon the foliage of the grove 
His big, round tears, as well as when mine eye 

Descried the day-beam, glittering from above. 
And paving, with a flood of glorious light. 
The Earth, but lately disenthralled of Night. 

"Alas ! those mioments of delight are fled ; 

Fled are their beams which once illumed my 
soul; 
Alone, toward the dark empire of the dead, 

I haste ^to join the multitudes, who roll 
Their countless numbers through those portals 
dread ; 
There to repose till heaven's wide-spreading scroll 



Ill 

Be rent. O God ! within my breast, the knell 
Of Death is rung ! Life, Earth, and Love farewell !" 

He ceased. Across the sunset-braided face 

Of heaven's high brow, Night spread her raven 
wing. 

And bade the stars look down upon the place 
Where cold he lay, whose harp was wont to sing 

Of how their luster gemmed the plains of space: 
Above the hill-tops, Luna rose to fling 

Her tender radiance 'round the poet's head. 

Now wrapped in dreamless slumbers of the dead. 



LINES WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM. 

O thou, from whose unmoistened eye 

The smile of girlhood softly shines ; 
The azure of whose life's pure sky, — 

Bright as the arch, when Day resigns 
His scepter to the conquering Night, — 

Beams with the hallowed rays of Truth, 
And burns with Hope's untarnished light. 

Whose radiance gilds the paths of youth. 

Oh, ever thus, may Hope and Love, 

(Twin cherubs, born in paradise,) 
Fling round thy pathway from above. 

The choicest pleasure of the skies. 
Thus life will sweetly glide away. 

Dew-lipped, May-crowned, and flowery fair. 
Till to the realms of perfect day. 

Time in his flight thy soul shall bear. 



10* 



112 

THE DEPARTURE. 

The east was blushing in the dawn. 

As by the river's osiered side, 
I pressed the honeyed lips of one. 

Fair as the heavens at eventide. 
Soft blew the flower-scented breeze. 

Which, fresh from woodlands, bright with bloom, 
Was soon to waft me o'er the seas 

To climes beyond the ocean's foam. 

Her hand lay trembling in my own ; 

The rose-hue paled upon her cheek. 
As from her lips, in quivering tone. 

Were breathed the words she scarce could speak. 
With choking voice, and moistened eye. 

Our last farewell in grief was ta'en ; 
And then I left her, standing nigh, 

To wander out upon the main. 

Alone, upon the boisterous surge. 

Her image never left my soul ; — 
When Day's bright chariot-wheels would urge 

Their passage where the waves uproll 
To meet the sky's ethereal hue. 

It rose to mingle with their light. 
And when the day-beam sank from view. 

In dreams it cheered me through the night. 

Tossed on the ocean's heaving breast. 

Each eve, upon the crimsoned wave. 
As twilight glimmered in the west. 

To brighter scenes my thoughts I gave. 
Again I clasped my darling's hand ; 

Again I murmured in her ear. 
Beside the river's voiceless strand. 

The w^ords which only she might hear. 



113 

Two years, within a southern clime, 

I spent, apart from love and home. 
And slowly crept the laggard time. 

And often Hope was veiled in gloom : 
Its arms the palm above me spread. 

When noonday reigned in fiercest power 
Beneath the banyan's echoing shade, 

I strayed when night began to lower. 

From pliant vines the melon hung 

Its luscious fruit ; the lemon nigh. 
Where Nature's gleeful cherubs sung. 

Bent with its burden 'neath the sky ; 
The orange perfumed all the wind. 

And music breathed its softest lay ; 
All things to charm the soul combined. 

But yet I longed to be away. 



THE RETURN. 

Time passed ; again I rode the deep ; 
Again its billows met my gaze ; 

I saw its waves around me sweep. 
Lit w^ith the sun's expiring rays. 

The blood within me fairly danced ; 
I could have wept for very glee. 

As homeward bound our ship advanced- 
Home to the one I yearned to see. 

For weeks, around me, ocean lay 

One restless, infinite expanse 
Of swelling waves, on which the Day, 

Exulting, shot his fiery glance : 



114 

On ! on we sped across the brine ! 

But Hope out-winged the vessel's flight ; 
Beyond the tropic's blazing line 

My loved one's form appeared to sight. 

At length the expectant port was gained ; 

The walls of home arose to view. 
And soon I trod the osiered strand. 

Where Love and I had sighed adieu. 
With palpitating heart, I stood 

Beside my darling's vine-WTeathed door ; 
Upraised the latch, and trembling, strode 

Across the hollow-sounding floor. 

The place was silent as the tomb. 

No maiden answered to my cry. 
And all around seemed black with gloom. 

As though despair and Death w'ere nigh. 
Heart-crushed and desolate, I turned 

From that abode of grief and fear. 
To where the stars, above me, burned 

In heaven's illimitable sphere. 

Led by capricious Fate, I found. 

Ere long, beneath the stars that shone. 
My head reclining on a mound. 

O'er which the grass had newly grown. 
Upon the head-stone, where the yew 

Leaned lovingly, mine eyes descried 
The name of her I loved, and oh ! 

I longed to slumber at her side. 

Mv loss was sore ; my grief was such. 
The tears refused to steep mine eyes ; 

Bowed 'neath the weight of Sorrow's touchj 
How could my spirit hope to rise ! 



115 

Years since that darksome hour have fled, 
But never can my soul forget 

The memory of my precious dead. 
Whose grave my tears have often wet. 



U R W A L K . 

By rustic pathways, boxed with green. 
That smelt of summer's ripening sway. 

While, floating through the blue serene, 
Diana shed her liquid ray ; 

Across the silver of the scene. 

With lightsome step we bent our way. 

The scent of hay and clover made 

Fresh perfume for each wind that blew 

From daisied glen or grassy glade. 

Where circling woods their shadows threw ; 

As underneath v/hose voiceless shade. 
Our winding pathway onward grew. 

No plaintive cadence rung from out 

The whispering leaves that 'round us swung : 
But rustling corn-fields waved about 

The forest edges, ivy-hung ; 
Where all day long the harvest shout 

Along the tasseled m.aize had rung. 

High over all the bearded fields. 

Where the tall wheat in billows ran. 

Or where the orchard blushing yields 
Its tribute to the husbandman. 

The planets, on suspended wheels. 
Led the pale crescent's fiery van. 



116 

The wooing airs, around us, fell 
Unheeded in their sportive mirth ; 

For many a burning syllable. 

Dropped from our lips, had given birth 

To such strange bliss, each hidden v\'ell 
Of feeling gushed in sv/eetness forth. 

Our sighs all breathed of Love ; our speech 
Waxed fervid 'neath his magic wand ; 

Each cheek lay nestled close to each. 
And palmed in each lay either hand; 

And like the wave-intoning beach. 
Our bosoms beat at Love's command. 



O summer evening, jewel-rimmed. 
So mixed with joy's delirious sweets 

How oft your memiories have brimmed 
My soul with such delicious treats 

Of that sweet scene, by Fancy limned. 
That every pulse extatic beats ! 

Fades from my sight the mis^y now, 
And melts into the wizard past ; 

Those eyes in glistening rapture glow. 
Those arms are round my bosom cast 

Her warm breath fans my heated brow 
Our lips — oh bliss too sweet to last ! 



Die out, cold moon, from yonder sky, . 

As hom.evvard treading through the night. 
Deep down within that speaking eye 

I see Love's flame enkindled bright ! 
One clasp — a kiss — and then good bye — 

And she has left my widowed sight ! 



117 
THE LOVER'S SERENADE, 

O jeweled Night, whose balmy sighs 
Float from Arcadian bowers above. 

Drop lightly, from yon spangled skies. 
Upon the lids of her I love ! 

Bathe them in slumber's fount, so bright. 
And lead, through dreamland's starry door 

My lady fair, whose orbs of light 

Are fraught v/ith Love's resistless power. 

Long lashes, from whose fringes slip 
Soul-piercing glances, softly meek ; 

The crimson scarlet of a lip ; 

Twin" roses, blown in either cheek; 

The rounded languor of a form 

Which even slumber dare not hide ; 

A heart that beats as true and warm 
As any maiden's heart beside ; 

These paint the spot where Flora lies. 

So that the curtains of the Night 
May veil the luster of her eyes 

From garish Day's intrusive light. 

All night, above her pillowed sleep. 
Trill, nightingale, thy dulcet lays. 

And warble, while the night-dews weep. 
In music, my beloved one's praise. 

Tell to the moon that rides above. 
All panoplied with guardian clouds. 

And to the stars which burn in love 

Through midnight's fleece-inwoven shrouds ; 



lis 

Sing to the rill that lightly trips 

Along its pebble-covered bed ; 
And to the rose, whose chalice dips. 

When amorous Zephyr bows her head ; 

Sing to the threshold of the dawn. 
What time the east begins to glow. 

That all my hopes are fastened on 

The dreaming maid who sleeps below. 

That she, to my love-haunted heart. 
Is as the sun which lights the world. 

Who, when his beamxS from earth depart. 
Leaves the black wings of Night unfurled. 

O murmur if she love me still. 

As I had fondly hoped erewhile ; • 

If now my words her visions thrill. 

And wreathe her face with smile on smile. 

Then part those ruby — crimsoned lips. 
And kiss their nectared sweets for me ; 

Take thrice one dozen honeyed sips. 
Reserved for only such as thee. 

Bear from her ruddy mouth, upturned 
In slumber toward her lover's cot, — 

These words, that in my bosom burned. 
By me will never be forgot : 

'^Sweet youth, my heart is v/holly thine ! 

I love thee with a warmth of soul. 
No human fancy can divine. 

Nor half its meaning depths unroll." 

Flit, odorous hours, on rosied wings. 

Till I shall once again embrace 
My Flora by the wooded springs 

That bubble near our trysting place. 



119 

Flit, golden moments, sweetly past. 

Till Flora's arms are 'round me twined. 

And gently, over both, is cast 

Love's rainbow garment, silver-lined. 



NIGHT. 

The furrows of the azure fields of Nighr 

Are thickly sown with stars : 
From whose round depths the moon's imperial light 

Looks through its skyey bars. 

The dewy slopes of upland lift their green 

And shadowy bosoms, set 
With clover-blossoms, toward the hallowing sheen 
'That bathes yon rivulet. 

The woods, in all their somber robes of gloom. 

Bend to receive the kiss. 
The breeze, from orchard avenues of bloom, 

Prints with its soft caress. 

A deep contentment fills the humble vale. 

And flower-crowned forest floor : 
Hushed is the bell of kine, the shepherd's tale 

Is breathed aloud no more. 

The milk-maid slumbers, and the fleecy charge 

Is housed in sheltering folds ; 
Its image in the lake, the fisher's barge. 

Rocked on the tide, beholds. 

O ancient Night ! in gazing on thv brow. 

Prophets and seers of eld 
Have felt thy mystic touch, as heavenward thou 

Their wondering visions held. 
II 



120 

For from thy garments flash the living ravs 

Of that resplendence bright. 
Which, glimmering from the beatific blaze, 

Gilds all thy robes with light. 

Thence have the bards of other days, the fire 

Of inspiration caught. 
As each has touched his music-trembling lyre 

By heaven's own fingers wrought. 

Most solemn and mysterious Night ! beneath 

Thy star-embroidered gov/n. 
Amid the worlds, by God's creative breath 

O'er thy dark bosom blown ; 

I stand, and shudder at His hand that guides 
Revolving spheres through space ; 

Who, from its hollow, poured the ocean tides. 
Wherein to glass His face. 

O Night, thy silent grandeur fills my breast. 

And stills the lips- of Pride ; 
Soothes, with its sabbath dreams of quiet rest. 

Grief's ever-swelling tide ! 

thou sublime instructor of mankind ! 
Inscribed within thy halls, 

1 read the truths that elevate the mind, 

V/rit on their glittering walls. 



121 

SONNET. 

Fair lake, upon whose sloping marge I stand. 

Shut in by mountains, bald, and dark, and steep. 
Whose slumberous shadows in thy wave expand — 

Thy mournful music evermore doth keep 
A place in Memory's ear for one who late 

Slow wandered, underneath the stars with me. 
What time the dove .was cooing to her mate. 

And, all our talk was murmured unto thee. 
Thy waves in rippled beauty flash from far. 

As in their bosom dips the shining oar ; 
And high along thy crags, the sunset's car 

Spangles the water-lilies near thy shore ; 
And on thy breast the fish-hawk's plaintive scream 
Floats, like the dirge of Hope o'er Life's cold stream. 



IMAGINATION. 

In Thought's laboratory lies 

A chamber, from whose sheening walls,- 
Gilt with the hues of paradise, — 

A rainbow flood of splendor falls. 
Huge vines along the casement's sill. 

Wet with the dews of morning trail ; 
Ambrosial drops of fragrance fill 

That one green spot in Life's drear vale. 

Half-hid within the silken folds 

Of gold-fringed curtains, rustling nigh. 

Sad Memory sits, and thence beholds 
The genial light of childhood's sky: 



122 

Paths that her feet were wont to tread. 
When life shone fresh as morning dew ; 

The crystal streams around her spread ; 
The woods arrayed in vernal hue. 

Beside her stands celestial Hope, 

With wistful gaze upturned to heaven ; 
The gates, that bar the future, ope 

Beneath her gaze so sweetly given ; 
The world beyond unrolls from far 

Its hidden fount of light and bliss ; 
She wings her flight from star to star. 

Ere Morning prints her earliest kiss. 

In this rare chamber bards have sat. 

And sang their most enchanting lays. 
As sifted through the window-slat. 

The softened sunlight shot its blaze. 
And touched their harps with heavenly fire. 

Till kindled into pleasing mirth. 
The music of each breathing lyre 

Has flooded all the listening earth. 

Thither the bard of Avon cam.e 

To string his instrument anev/ ; 
Thence Milton caught the heaven-born flame 

That shone his master spirit through ; 
Here Byron's classic lays were breathed. 

And Dante tuned his harp sublime. 
And Shelley, round his forehead, wreathed 

Fresh laurels from the fields of Time. 

Ye lyric fathers of the past. 

To-day, the perfume of your song, 

Through all that spacious chamber cast. 
Floats the dead centuries along. 



123 

It falls like drops of fragrant myrrh 

Into the hearts of those that sing 
Your deathless praise : for you, the tear 

From Memory's lids must ever spring. 

pleasant chamber ! through thy doors. 
Which open toward the rising day. 

The voice of music ever pours. 

In mellow peals, its roundelay ; 
And light through all thy casements streams. 

And plashes with its ruddy fire 
Thy velvet carpeting, and beams 

On sculptured bust, and living lyre. 

1 sit within at eve's decline. 

And at the morning's rosy birth. 
And on those cushioned seats recline, 

Where once have sat the great of earth : 
7'he self-same harp their skillful hands 

Have touched so oft, I strike anew. 
When suddenly, before me, stands 

A form,"''' celestial in its hue. 

Borne on her wings, beneath me fades 

The Earth which swings through rounded space 
The morning's glow ; the evening's shades ; 

I view the great sun, face to face. 
Around me systems shine and roll. 

World upon world, in endless line. 
And like some mighty parchment's scroll. 

Out-spreads the handiwork divine. 

The clouds, far under, screen the globe 
Which twinkles through the smoky mist 

Clad in its bright, prismatic robe 
Of sapphire, gold and amethvst, 

'''^ Fancy . 
11* 



124 

The rainbow spans the unknown void. 
And sinks its columns in the sea. 

And high on ether's bosom buoyed. 
It burns w^ith dazzling brilliancy. 

Again the earth springs fresh and fair 

On my unclouded vision ; see ! 
Her mountain summits cleave the air. 

Snow-fringed, through all eternity. 
Beneath, the embracing clouds dissolve 

In tears to irrigate the soil ; 
Above, the wheels of day revolve. 

And crown the tiller's patient toil. 

Still nearer we approach ; on high 

The trees their regal tresses bear. 
And rustle to the o'er-looking sky. 

And shake their green locks in the air. 
Vale, hill and stream, fresh beauties show. 

And brighten every passing hour, 
And ocean's gales about me blov/ 

With re-invigorating power. 

Again I tread the lialis of Thought ; 

My winged attendant fades from sight ; 
Once more, yon room, so often sought, 

Encircles me with living light : 
Great organ v^-aves of melody 

Sweep over all my spirit's chords. 
And shake the pillared dome on high, 

x4nd roll like incense heavenwards. 

The minstrel spirits seem to breathe 
In every fresh-blown gust of song : 

Garlands of amaranths enwreathe 

Each temple. Fame has crov/ned so long. 



125 

Give me the lyre ! I feel a glow 
Of inspiration thrill my veins ! 

Through all my soul's recesses blow 
The muse's heavenly-warbled strains. 

Give me the lyre ! I'll sing a lay. 

Whose links of sweetness shall be coiled 
Around the future, dim and gray. 

And trance a rapture-listening world. 
So 'mid the splendor now that falls 

From paintings rare and lutes of gold, 
I bathe, inside these sheening walls. 

In music's tides around me rolled. 



A JUNE CAROL 



Lazily cushioned upon the grass 

That tufted the roots of an ancient willow, 
I watched the gold of the sunshine pass 

In flakes of crimson, athwart my pillow. 

The woods, around me, seemed drowsy with mirth. 
Whose jubilant rythm, and warblesome singing, 

Were making a festival season of earth. 

And setting the heart of the glad summer ringing. 

The blue of the sky looked down from above. 
As if never a tempest had stained its bright bosom. 

And the winds, about me, seemed v/hispering of 
love. 
As they tenderly cradled the lily's white blossom^. 

The trees were fairly shaking with glee. 

As they danced about on the light-Vvdnged zephyr, 

And the streamlet capered merrily 

About the breast of the lowing heifer. 



126 

High on an oak tree, that rustled near by, 

A squirrel war. emptying his heart of its gladness, 

Whose bark, with the bob-o-link's minstrelsy. 
Seemed fraught with some of its own sweet 
madness. 

Sunshine, and laughter, and gushes of song, 

Had entered, and filled my full soul to o'erflowing. 

And the moments slipped so fleetly along, 
I scarcely knew that the day was going. 

Silver-sandaled the hours sped on. 

And all the while my heart was singing. 

Glad with the leaves, and the birds, and the sun. 
And thrilled with the music, around me ringing. 



TWILIGHT MEMORIES. 

The orange of the sunset fades 

From the deep violet of the skies. 

And day has left the swarded glades. 
To purple other realms, that rise 

Beyond the circumambient deep. 

Where balmily the south-wind blows. 
And cradles dreamily the rose. 

And soft the dews of Hesper weep. 

Come, love ! around thy yielding form 
Mv arms are wound in tenderest fold ; 

Come, let us breathe our love in warm 
Heart-language, from each lip out-rolled^ 

And seize the moments as they glide 
On downy pinions swift away. 
So fleetly, that they will not stay, 

And leave me, ever at thv side. 



127 

Twas thus I spoke to one, whose breast. 

Responsive, throbbed against my own ; 
Whose head lay couched in silken rest. 

And showered in golden light upon 
My bosom, that beneath it rose. 

And fell, like waves along the strand. 

Whilst over all the belted land. 
The lingering smile of twilight glows. 

She smiled — like one that drinks the light 
That streams on all the breezy downs. 

When storms have spent their sullen might. 
And smoothed their darkly-svveltering frowns 

So did I drink the fairy smile 

That spread in sunshine o'er her face. 
And stirred the fringe of ruffled lace 

Around her snow-white throat, the while. 

At length she spoke, and at the sound. 
Each seemed to grow to each as one ; 

W^ith no unhallowed watcher 'round. 
We spoke to each of love alone ; 

While the deep orange of the skies 
.Slow melted into somber eve, 
As each, with hearts too glad to grieve. 

Beheld the harvest moon arise. 

Arise, and pour from palace hights. 

Through rifts of cloud, and bars of blue. 

Mixed with the star's senescent lights, 
A chastened glory to the vievv- ; 

Oh how unlike the glow that burned 
Into my soul, from orbs that yet 
By tearful grief had ne'er been wet. 

On which my gaze dilated turned. 



128 
THE FOREST GRAVE. 

AN ENGLISH SKETCH. 

The lids of Morning open in the east ; 

The balm of slumber, shaken from the wings 
Of dewy Night, has spent its perfumed breath ; 

And heavenward the skylark mounts and sings 
To view Day's chariot in its livery drest. 

Gilt with Aurora's rose- embroidered wreath. 

Through the cool hush of grassy-mantled glades. 
The sun looks in from heaven's latticed bars. 

And tints with gold the mirror of the rill. 

In which all night, the glimmering of the stars 

Shot phosphorescent light, to glad the shades. 
Thrown from the Druid oaks on yonder hill. 

Beside me is a mound of earth, upraised 

From the green bosom of the woods around. 

Where the light-footed squirrel darts in play. 
And music breathes its rich, melodious sound ; 

Voluptuous breezes on this spot have gazed. 
And spilt their spices 'round its fragrant clay. 

Above this narrow cell, with silent tread. 

And voiceless lapse, the seasons come and go. 

And glide into the sable-hooded past. 

Unmindful of the form that sleeps below. 

In the dark mausoleum of the dead, 

'Round which Decay's funereal shroud is cast. 

Here spring first greens each freshly budding bough. 

And liberal summer ripes each fruited spray. 
And autumn pencils all the dappled woods — 



129 

Here winter heaps his snows the live-long day ; 
And all the while, this slumberer, e'en as now. 
Rests dreamlesslv in these calm solitudes. 



No matter though the thunder crash without. 
And deluges wnth rain earth's mossy breast ; 

No matter though the scarlet sunset glow 
In brightening glory from the portaled west ; 

Walled by his coffined house of clay about. 
Alike to him the winds mav breathe or blow. 



This lump of earth, once filled with active life. 
And burning high with hopes of future bliss, — 

Trod, even as I tread, (how strange,) perhaps. 
This very spot 'neath which he sleeps in peace ; 

Here pruned the grass in childhood with his knife. 
Or listened to yon rivulet's gurgling lapse. 

Here oft as Night relit her silver lamp, 

Which stole in meek, soft radiance through the 
grove. 
He wooed, beside this gnarled and ancient oak. 
The one who thrilled his dreams with thoughts 
of love ; 
Here where the spotted doe is wont to tramp. 
Her honeyed accents on his hearing broke. 

Here too, perchance, his children gamboled oft. 
As through the trees, their father's ax rung shrill. 

And cushioned on the greensward lay his dog ; 
Here did the west-wind, o'er his forehead, spill. 

In age, the old man's locks with dalliance soft. 
Whilst haply seated on some forest log. 



130 



Began to patter their nutritious fruit. 
And all the woods seemed dabbled as with blood ; 

Thither, along yon hillock's pebbly foot. 
Followed by weeping friends, and wailing spouse. 

His corpse was brought to rest in this abode. 

Since then, perchance, a century has passed ; 

Wife, children, friends, have joined their kindred 
dead ; 
His house is razed, and strangers press the spot. 

Where once his gardened lands about him spread; 
Alone, the requiem of each wintry blast 

Moans o'er the graves of them who now are not. 

Thus ends his record, yet perchance, 'twas more ; 

These ashes may have burned with patriot fire. 
And stemmed the onslaught of some bristling host ; 

Fought for the soil bequeathed him by his sire. 
And bared his breast in Freedom's holy war. 

Regardless of its blood-enshrining cost. 

Perhaps he was of gentler mood, and sought 

These quiet shades to breathe his soul in song, 

And weave the beauties, 'round him, into verse ; 
To mingle, with the feathery-breasted throng. 

The music of his harp, from Nature caught. 
And all her matchless glories to rehearse. 

Perhaps he was a victor over self, 

The narrow-minded selfishness of pride. 

The sordid lust of gain ; the constant thirst 
For sublunary happiness, denied 

To those who place their passions on the shelf 
Of sacrifice, whence joy's true fount may burst. 



131 

A nobler purpose stirred his inmosi; soul. 

Where Virtue had enshrined her sister. Truth ; 

His heart expanded 'neath her warming light. 
That paradised his breast with fadeless youth. 

And turned the springs of action toward the goal 
Of heaven-awarded praise, that crowns the Right. 

He might have been a recluse, who had fled 
The sycophantic mimicry of mirth ; 

Aweary of the flattery-smirking crowd — 
Sick of the hollow-heartedness of earth. 

Whose kindlv heart hath ofttim.es inly bled 

To see, at Pleasure's shrine, her votaries bowed. 

Here did he kneel, and here his soul went up 
In fervent breathings to the King of kings ; 

And here beheld the curtains, which enscreen 
Man's spiritual vision, part, as v/ings 

Were given his faith, that he might rise, and sup 
On food divinely tasted, though unseen. 

Yet more, perchance he paced these upland slopes 
At eve, when all the playful winds were stilled, 

Resolved, as fired with longings after fam.e. 

To leave the furrow which his plow had tilled. 

And meet the full fruition of his hopes. 

And carve on Fame's high pinnacle his name. 

No matter what his record may have been, 
'Tis all vain surmise and conjecture now ; 

No echo breaks the calm of his repose. 

Nor stirs the grasses that about him grow ; 

Nor speaks of one, above whose ashes lean 
Yon aged elm-tree's venerable boughs. 
12 



132 

Alone, the blue sky bends above his couch, — 
Anon, the winds low murmur 'round his dust ; • 

"Here are the bones of one, whose lot in life 
Resembled thine ; by generous Fortune nurs'd ; 

This clay hath felt the bliss-inspiring touch 

Of Hope,make radiant youth's most arduous strife. 

"This heart, now strangely silent as the leaves 
That hang around it from each pendant limb. 

Hath loved, joyed, sorrowed, hated, e'en as thou 
Art moved by passions, such as stirred in him ; 

Broke from beneath his eyes' encurtained eaves 
Red anger's flash, or pity's softened glow." 

And must this handful of dissolving earth 

Forever lie quiescent in the urn. 
Whilst through the lighted centuries, now en- 
tombed. 

Faith's hallowed fire hath never ceased to burn ; 
And man hath felt its kindlings giving birth 

To hopes which bright before his vision loomed ? 

Have we not traversed violet-scented lawns. 

And heard from copse-strewn thickets, bird-like 
strains 

Of melody, that brimm.ed each bounding breast ? 
Or gazing on the night's bestudded plains. 

Caught the sweet whispering of angelic tones. 
That warbled to us, "Earth is not your rest ?" 

O man ! no matter whether torrid heat. 

Or arctic frosts have warmed or chilled thy blood. 

Hast thou not felt at times wnthin thy soul 
The swellings of divinity, and trod 

The threshold of some paradisal seat. 

Beyond where earth's bleak shadows rise and roll ? 



133 

Think you the stars were meant to shine in vain. 
Think you that while the earth reblossoms, man, 

Whom Deity has stamped with his impress. 
Prostrate beneath grim Death's invidious ban. 

Must go to fertilize some fruitful plain. 
Forever mantled in unconsciousness ? 

We look beyond for some more radiant clime. 
Fanned by the breath of an eternal spring. 

Where youth and sunshine fadelessly are given ; 
For Nature speaks, in every breathing thing 

That animates her breast, with ceaseless chime. 
The beauties of a brighter world, called heaven. 

If this be true, ah then ! how sweet to lie 
With thee, oblivious slumberer, in the sod. 

Where heaven distils its aromatic dew. 

And laden zephyrs fling their sweets abroad ; 

Where, underneath the curtains of the sky. 
The Earth puts on her garb of emerald hue. 

There, as I take my last, undreaming rest. 
Let no unhallowed foot pollute my clay. 

No impious hand disturb my sacred dust. 

But heaven's own liquid splendor round me play. 

And clustering roses garniture my breast. 

Till the cold turf shall yield its solemn trust. 



A SEPTEMBER EVEf^lNG. 

September had dropped from the skirts 
Of the twilight, in clouds and in rain. 

As I moodily sat, with my face in my hands. 
Gazing out of the misty pane. 



134 

The volume, whose musical tone 

Had charmed me so often before. 
Slid out of my lap, and silently lay 

By the kitten that dozed on the floor. 

The tick of the clock was unheard. 

And the embers, that fell from the grate. 

Flickered about on the pictured wall 
Like the phantom gleamings of Fate. 

The road, that over the way 

Looked somber and sad through the mist. 
And the church, the vane of whose steeple seemed 

By the tearful clouds to be kissed ; 

These, from the grave of the past. 

Recalled to my Memory's sight. 
Another twilight of mist, and of storm. 

That fell from the pinions of night. 

And how, 'mid the deepening gloom. 

Our horses with fleet-footed pace. 
Dashed on through the rain, till the village lights 

Beamed faint on each wind-beaten face. 

O'er the tree-crowned carriage-vvalk. 

By arbors and avenues gray. 
The cru7ich of our horses' feet w^as heard. 

As they spurned the gravel away. 

That night, as T stood in the hall. 

Soft eyes were beaming on mine. 
And a voice, whose liquid sweetness of tone 

Seemed floating from music's shrine. 



135 

And I pressed a snow-white hand. 

As I left the fair one's door. 
And oh, the thrill of that magic toy.ch 

Still lingers wnth me as of yore. 

Chill night of wind and of storm, 

Your memories have stirred my breast ! 

Soul-thrilling glances, more potent than speech^ 
You have given me love for my guest ! 



ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP, 

Oh with what coolness blows this grateful wind 
About my forehead. Here I have escaped 
The city's pestilential breath ; the heat 
Which throbs along the crowded pave, and burns 
The dusty thoroughfare, and beats upon 
The scorching side-walk in its flaming ire. 
Beneath me, all is freshness. Nature lifts, 
'Mid summer's verdure, her untutored gaze 
Up to the heavens, where shines the jovial sun. 
Swayed by the breeze that fans the heated earth. 
The undulating woodlands bow their heads. 
As through the leaves, which interlace each bough. 
Sparkles like gold the heaven-reflecting stream. 
That, loitering, purls along its seaward route. 
From neighboring cottages the smoke upcurls. 
And melts into the atmosphere of day. 
Along a tortuous pathway, winding down 
The miountain's summit, bending 'neath its load. 
Resounds the creaking of the ponderous wheels 
Of some huge w^agon, laden ^\ ith its sheaves. 
12^ 



136 

Along yon precipice, the stunted pines 

Grow downward, as if eager to embrace. 

Once more, their kindred element. Huge crags 

Shelve, with their beetling brows, the flinty path 

That leads the traveler toward this mountain hight. 

Where clambers oft the shepherd lad, in search 

Of sweeter herbage for his bleating flock. 

Beside his barn, in home-spun garments clad. 

The swarthy farmer stacks the scented hay. 

That sweetens with its breath the morning gales. 

Breast-deep, within the waters of the stream 

That flows with sleepy laughter in its tone — 

The unyoked oxen stand, and lowing, mar 

The rythmic cadence of the gleeful birds 

That pour, into the forest depths around. 

Continuous melody. Far oft, the bay 

Of some sonorous mastiff^ greets my ear. 

Mixed with the shrill-mouthed neighing of the steed. 

Unharnessed for a ramble in the fields ; 

Who, in the breeze his loosely-flowing mane 

Shakes, as he crops the soft, luxuriant grass. 

Or rolls thereon at pleasurable will. 

From out the trees, a solitary spire 

Points to the skies, and from its turret rings. 

Each eve, as Day is sinking to his rest, 

A farewell tribute to the setting sun. 

From meadows, far away, the voices faint 

Of shouting children, just let loose from school. 

Come floating, 'round me, on the summer winds. 

Hedged in with shrubbery, the garden walks. 

That face each rustic farm-house, fling their sv/eets 

Upon the viewless currents of the air. 

High over all, the sun's untiring disc 

Wheels its accustomed journey through the sky. 

And streams on sloping upland, glade and dale. 

The golden glory of his unshorn beams. 



137 

A few brief years ago, and this fair scene 
Was one unbroken wilderness of woods. 
Where never ax had rung, or village bell 
Broke the untrammeled winds. No curling smoke 
Blurred with its columned wreaths the pearly sky ; 
But here, along the mountain's rocky sides 
Skulked the gray wolf, or the suspicious fox 
Stole from his dusky burrow, and with slow. 
And stealthy tread, scared, from his leafy perch. 
The unwary squirrel. By yon rivulet. 
The antlered monarch of his forest realm 
Has often browsed, or from its limpid waves 
Lapped the delightful beverage they yield 
To thirsty traveler. Above this peak 
Screamed the bald eagle to his answering mate. 
Making the woods to echo : she, beside 
My place of rest, with overshadowing wings. 
Has brooded o'er her eyrie, with the blood 
Trickling from her w^et talons, as she tore 
Some feathered prey to feed her ravening young. 

Old Mount, if thou couldst speak, how many a tale 

Of horror, thou to mortals couldst unfold ! 

Through these wild passes battle's tides have surged 

In waves of crimson, dyeing all the rocks 

With human gore. The thunder-crashing boom 

Of war's artillery, and the stunning din 

Of meeting armies, 'round whose lessening ranks — 

The smoke of combat spread a cloudy veil. 

Have rolled along these crags, and made them rife 

With all the boisterous minstrelsy of war. 

How changed the aspect of the place ! To-day, 

The dream-like beauty of this pastoral scene 

Has stolen with its quietude my heart. 

Here, if she weary not, before these hights 

Are scaled, the lover's fair one might be brought ; 



138 

What time the sun is sloping toward the hills. 
And the bland airs of evening, in her ear. 
Whisper their burning syllables of love. 

But think you not this mountain summit sees 

Perpetual tranquillity ; for here 

The banners of the tempest are unfurled. 

And the fierce storm wakes from his slumberous 

dreams. 
Deep in some caverned cleft — and walketh out 
To battle with the untam^ed elements. 
Here, the red flash, and the portentous boom. 
Tell to the watchers in the vale below 
The anger of the clouds, and pealing forth. 
Swells the hoarse diapason of the storm. 

The years still weave their tissue of events. 
And still tliis mountain, breasting with its front 
The blows of Change, and ruder gusts of Time- 
Whitens in frosty winter's sleety breath. 
And brightens in the summer's mantling bloom. 
Still towering upward tovv^ard the firmament. 
From whose unbolted wnndows peeps the dawn. 
To gild its top with heaven's ethereal fire. 



NOVEIVIBER, 

I. 

The dead leaves whirl in gusty showers 
Through the broken arches of the bowers 
And far away, where the globe of day 
Hangs over a sky of ashen gray. 

The streamlet shimmers. 
And dreamily glimmers. 
And moans to the forest its monotone lav. 



139 
II. 

The greenwoods are emptied of verdure and blossom. 
And zephyr, complaining, upbears on its bosom. 
From the garden-walks, where the clambering roses 
Late clustered the arbor, whose roof-tree encloses 
A summer retreat for maiden and lover. 
When the bustle and heat of the June day is over, — 
The faint exhalations, which Nature, in dying. 
Breathes forth on the air with her tremulous sighing. 

III. 

November is here, and close by his bier. 

Will December, the Year's latest offspring, appear : 

Hark ! the wind as it flies. 

To my spirit replies. 
And points me to where the Year's sepulcher lies. 

His sands are most run. 

And November, his son. 
Has hooded his face with a cowl, drear and dun. 

From forest and hill. 

To valley and rill. 
The breeze of the autumn is wailing its fill 
For the Year who is soon to lie pulseless and still. 



SPACE. 



Immeasurate abyss ! 
Stretching beyond the grandest sweep of Thought ! 
In thine immensity the worlds were wrought. 

Which overshadow this. 



140 

Aye ! through those depths sublime. 
The songful spheres are sounding out the praise 
Of Him, who from His brightness struck their rays 

To glad Creation's prime. 

Orbs, prodigal of light, 
Down the long path of centuries ye shine ; 
Choiring forever of the Hand divine 

That gemmed the skirts of Night ! 

See ! through the heavens afar. 
Rank after rank, the shining ones look down 
To mark what splendors girt Night's jeweled crown, 

Inwrought with star on star. 

Still on my upturned gaze 
The silver-streaming radiance showers apace, 
As if the Godhead had unveiled his face 

On hights where seraphs blaze. 

Bright luminaries beam. 
Swung in the vaulted ether, which dispense 
Their luster to revolving systems, thence 

Their lighted glories stream. 

The infinite of blue 
Sparkles within the comet's trail of light. 
That through the ancient corridors of Night 

Strikes on the wondering view. 

There hangs the Iris forth. 
At sundown, when the heavens are steeped in bliss. 
Her bow, whose painted columns seem to kiss 

The spangled bowers of Earth. 



141 

Through day's unwearying hours 
The sun magnificently walks the sky ; 
'Neath the refulgence of his burning eye 

The dazzled vision cowers. 

Still looms the dread expanse ! 
A gulf profound, on whose cerulean breast 
Reason is lost, and Thought, at mind's behest. 

Reels, powerless to advance. 

Beyond the farthest reach 
Of vision, in the infinitude of space. 
Worlds roll on worlds, and cover wide its face. 

Vocal with God's own speech. 

The years shall come and go. 
And Death shall knock the shackles from my soul, 
Then v^ill those bloomy billows 'round me roll. 

Which over ether flow. 

No longer caged in dust. 
How will the immortal rise to dip her wings 
In founts of light and joy, which Morning flings 

Forever 'round the just ! 

Above the firmament. 
Star-braided, the prolific void shall lie 
Open to my expanding spirit's eye. 

Through boundless spaces sent. 

Decades shall sweep along. 
Unheeded, o'er the Earth's forgotten dead. 
Still, through the eternity around me spread. 

My soul shall glide in song. 

In all, o'er all, through all 
The universe of God's creation, mind. 
Like day's bright orb, unclouded, unconfined. 

In beams of light shall fall. 



142 
A SUMMER IDYL, 

Away from busy haunts of men. 
Where mosses carpet vale and glen, 
I've stolen from my dusty books^ 
To see how generous Nature looks. 
And feel, around my fevered brow. 
The summer's grateful breezes blow. 

Adown a green declivity. 

Where tall old cedars beckon me, 

I bend my steps, and 'neath their shade. 

Soon are my weary members laid. 

What landscapes open to my eye ! 

High hills are lifting in the sky 

Their grassy foreheads, where the sun 

Pours his refulgent glory down ; — 

Here jutting rocks have bridged a stream. 

Whose waters in the sunlight gleam, 

And dance, in rippling eddies, 'round 

The swimmer's form, w^ho spurns the ground. 

To leap within the crystal wave. 

And in its cooling currents lave. 

An old bridge spans the noisy stream. 
O'er which the teamster drives his team ; 
Beyond it, rise the vernal slopes. 
Whence a more charming picture opes 
In quiet beauty to the view ; — 
Mixing with the horizon's blue. 
Far-reaching meadows sweep away. 
Clothed in the habiliments of day ; 
There, to the right, a forest stands. 
And seems to stretch its wavv hands. 



143 

As if within its shady breast. 
It welcomed me to seats of rest. 

The grasses, that about me grow, 

Luxuriate in the day's warm glow. 

And sunk wdthin their green tufts lie 

The ground-bird's brood, whose plaintive rry 

Pours its complaint upon the breeze. 

Beneath these overshadowing trees. 

Around me, little footprints tell 

The school-boy knows this spot full well ; 

For here the luscious berry grows ; 

The cherry's branching limbs disclose 

Their tempting fruit anear the spot. 

Where fleecy flocks yon meadows dot. 

Oft doth the maid her bucket bring 

To dip within the limpid spring 

That gushes from the smiling sod. 

Where late the weary teamster trod. 

And stooping o'er the gelid brink. 

Quaffed, deeply, its delicious drink. 

Thither the plow-boy comes at eve. 

And wipes the sweat-drops, with his sleeve. 

From his bronzed face, and leaning o'er. 

Imbibes the life-imparting store. 

How the glad waters slide and slip 

Over the pebbles, as the lip 

Of scented Zephyr stoops to kiss, 

And thrill the fountain into bliss. 

I hear the cow-bell's tinkling chime. 
And watch the timid squirrel climb 
Into the hollow of his oak. 
Scathed by the lightning's blasting stroke. 
o 



144 

I list the swallow's twittering call. 
As from the old mill's ruined wall 
She leaves the shelter of her nest. 
To skim the lisping runnel's breast. 

O beauteous spot, by summer crowned. 
Where Flora's feet imprint the ground. 
And every wood-nymph haunts the scene. 
So brightly fair, so freshly green ! 
But hark ! the whippowil's sweet lay 
Peals out the death-hymn of the day ; 
The hollows of the w^ide hills burn. 
Dipped in the sunset's ruddy urn ; 
The trees their massy shadows throw 
Into the vale that sleeps below ; 
The rocks, where clings the prickly brier. 
Flame in the sun's declining fire. 
Around the sloping hills, my feet. 
Behind me, leave this fair retreat. 
And with the dews of falling night 
My cottage roof appears in sight. 



THE ISLAND 



On vast mid-ocean's bosom lies 

An island, 'round whose wave-girt beach 
The restless billow sobs and sighs ; 

And o'er it, purple sunsets reach. 
When Day from out the welkin dies. 

There tropic splendor drapes the bowers. 
And wild acacias fling their shade. 

And rare, carnation-tinted flowers 

Spring wanton 'round each everglade, 

And perfume all the honeyed hours. 



145 

Far out, on ocean's glassy floor. 

The wave unseen glides up the sand. 
And all along the winding shore 
The screaming sea-birds crowd the strand. 
Or skim the dark-blue waters o'er. 

The tufted crags, that edge the shores 

Of jutting capes or curving bays. 
Rise, bathed within the tide, that pours 

Its cream-like surf beneath the blaze 
Which streams from heaven's ethereal doors. 

A spring goes murmuring through the groves. 
Where hang the cocoa's juicy cones ; 

And tinkles in the green alcoves. 
And gurgles o'er the mossy stones, 

Anear, where sit the turtle-doves. 

The cooling wings of evening fan 

The sultry languor of the meads. 
Untrodden by the foot of man ; 

Whose hand hath never dropped the seeds 
Of harvest on their fertile plain. 

From age to age, the sun and rain 

Beat on this paradise, anon, — 
Caressed and girdled by the main. 

Which clasps — out-stretched from zone to zone- 
This island, with its billowy chain. 

No plashing oar, beside the strand. 

Breaks on the winds that slumber 'round ; 

No grating keel, along the sand. 

Furrows the sheeted waves, which bound 

The frowning cliffs that guard the land. 



146 . 

Inland, the lush banana fills — 

Its leaves imbibing breeze and sun — 

With ripened pulp the emptv bills 
Of glittering birds, that flutter down 

To feast, ere eve her dew distils. 

And oh, amid the balmy aisles 

Of orange bowers, how blest to rove. 

While Night's round orb above me smiles. 
And south-winds talk to me of love — 

The shimmering deep outspread for miles. 

A gentle murmur in my ear, 

A soft white hand within my own. 

Whose pressure would be doubly dear. 
And trebly sweet the warbling tone 

Of virgin lips, when tasted here. 

Well might the stars, unheeded, burn, 
Imbowered, and rose-o'er-canopied. 

Our souls, from Love's delicious urn. 
Would drink its sweets, till overhead. 

We saw the golden dawn return. 

The plantain and the mangrove tree 

Might shade our Eden-lodge, whence spout 

Cool fountain jets, and brilliantly 
The fire-fly hangs her lantern out. 

And orchids flower o'er all the lea. 

Rocked in the blue arms of the surge. 
Oft shall these foliaged grottoes glow. 

As sunset fires the horizon's verge. 
And o'er the wave, that burns below. 

Floats some lone Nereid's plaintive dirge. 



147 
SYLVANDER AND LUCINDA. 

■On either side the lovers' dwellings rose. 
Each fronting each. Within the walls of one 
Dwelt fair Lucinda, on whose rose-sweet lips 
But seventeen summers had exhaled their balm. 
Within the other, lived Sylvander, he. 
Two years or m.cre the elder of the twain. 

These, ripening into full maturity. 

Had never yet been smitten to the heart 

By Love's keen arrows. Though residing near. 

Each within ear-shot of the other's voice. 

Neither, as yet, had met the other. Scarce 

A week had slipped away, since from the town, 

Lucinda's parents had removed their child. 

That she and they might catch the cooling gales 

That blow across the summer-smiling meads. 

One afternoon, the hyacinthine west. 
And violet-burdened breath of halcyon eve. 
Seemed to invite Sylvander to a seat 
Beside the deep bay-windows which looked out 
On;'fair Lucinda's residence. By chance. 
His eyes were lifted from the page whereon 
They had been fastened, toward the casement sill 
Just opposite ; thence, peering from the folds 
Of lilac-tinted curtains, he espied 
The features of Lucinda for the first. 
Her azure eyes, deep as the blue of heaven. 
Shot from their timid lashes, o'er the way. 
Full m-any a glance, intoxicate with love. 
And luminous as sunshine. O'er her cheek. 
Rounded and white, and tinged with crimson, fell 
13^= 



148 

Clusters of ringlets, like a modest veil ; 
As if to screen, from Day's imperious gaze. 
Her wondrous beauty. 

Deep into his soul 
Slid that fair image — not a hand nor foot 
Essayed to move, but from his lips outbroke, 
"Ah ! maiden never yet was half so fair." 

She too sat gazing sidewise at the youth. 
Whose florid face, and chestnut-curling hair. 
And frolic glance, and honest brow, where sat 
Truth, linked with innocency, won her heart. 
Long did she look, and watch his manly breast — 
Turned toward her — heave beneath its pent-up tide.- 
Of secret longings, 'till she fain had leaned 
Her golden head against that truthful form. 
At length, with m.aiden modesty, she rose. 
And left the window, busied with her thoughts. 
And filled with many a yearning unexpressed. 

The youth, that evening, yielded to the dreams 
Which weave their fancied glories in the depths 
Of every breast that has been thrilled with Love^ 
And thus unto himself he inly vowed : 
"Sure, I must see the object of my choice. 
Before to-morrow burnishes the wave ; 
For never, since the morning of my birth. 
Have fear and bliss so torn my anxious breast." 

The long-expected morrow dawned at last, 
And sultry noon crept by. The grateful shade 
Of neighboring, woods invited. From her home, 
Light-hearted, humming as she w^ent, the maid, 
liUcinda, skipped along, until she reached 
A brook, upon whose mossy bank she sat. 



149 

Beneath the shelter of an ash, and watched 

The sliding waters. Thus an hour sped on, 

When, suddenly, upon the other bank. 

The object of her heart's inquiry rose 

Full into view. Uprising from her seat. 

She would have fled, but thrown upon the breeze. 

This palpitating language chained her feet : 

"O lovely maiden, after whom my soul 

All day has been out-reaching, leave me not ; 

But wait I pray thee, till I gain thy side. 

And pour into thy bosom love's soft tale!" 

No sooner said, than with adventurous leap. 

He crossed the crystal-gliding stream, and stood. 

Facing the blushing maid, whose downcast eyes. 

And quivering form, spoke audibly as words 

Could speak, the agitation of her mind. 

''Give me thy hand," began the trembling youth ; 
Trembling 'twixt doubt,and hope, and pleasing fear. 
Seizing her unresisting hand in his ; — 
**'And let me lead thee to yon pleasant seat. 
Where green leaves spread their canopy ; for I 
Have that to tell thee, which my laden soul 
Covets to lisp in thine attentive ear." 

Thus, half-reluctantly, half-willing, led 

By one upon whose honor she relied ; 

With scarlet cheeks, and fluttering heart, that beat 

Wildly against the breast that prisoned it. 

The winsome maid advanced, and sat her down. 

Beside the youth, upon the proffered seat. 

Encouraged by the favor shown his suit. 

He straight unfolded to Lucinda's mind. 

And heart, the passion which had stirred his soul. 

And as his speech grev/ eloquent, and warmed. 

And kindled with the feelings in his breast. 



150 

She lifted, timidly into his face, — 

Broad, open, and lit up with Love's own light, — 

Her half-averted gaze ; — but when those orbs 

Beamed fall on his, each read the other's heart 

Within the tell-tale mirror, each to each 

Drev/ nearer ; language failed — one little sigh 

Escaped the m.aiden, as if her full heart 

Would fain have been disburdened of its weight : 

"I love thee, sweet one," faintly breathed the youth. 

And at the sound, the maiden's yielding hand. 

Folded in his, pressed, tremulously soft. 

The clasp that held it ; 'round her bodiced waist 

Sylvander wound an arm ; Lucinda's head 

Drooped on his bosom, till its wealth of curls 

Rippled beneath his smoothly-curving chin. 

No watchers nigh except the spotless heavens. 

And the tall oaks that rustled on the lea. 

And girt the forest. Not a listener near. 

Save the low breeze, that with the m.aiden's locks 

Disported, and caressed her ivory brow. 

Raising her dimpled hand, upon its snow. 

The eager lover pressed his burning lips. 

Then, bending lov/, to where her forehead shone. 

He passionately printed thereupon 

A kiss which seemed to penetrate his soul. 

Still bolder grown, the maiden's roguish mouth 

Spread its sweet banquet to his eager eyes. 

And stooping nearer, soon its dewy tips 

Closed 'round his own ; and as he felt their touch 

Draw from him the full vintage of his lips, 

And tasted all the fragrance her's could give. 

Love's honev dropped its bliss into his soul. 

**0 love," the m.aiden murmured, "joy like this 



151 

Seems heavcn-distillcd." "My heart's delight," 

replied 
The youth, "for such another kiss I'd give 
The greenest fields within my sire's domain. 
To which I am, alone, the rightful heir !" 

By this, the sun had nearly set in heaven. 
One long caress, and then the lovers rose. 
Each freighted with the luxury Love imparts. 
And yet, with thoughts as crystal as the brook. 
That laughed and warbled as it tripped along. 
Thus did they wander homeward, on the way 
Conversing of the theme which lay so near 
Their brimming hearts — in accents soft and low. 

The sunset rolled in crimson tides afar. 
Up from the glens, a mellow-rippling gush 
Of sylvan music raptured all the air. 
A lake, environed by the zoning hills. 
Spread, 'neath, its liquid canvas, upon which 
The lingering Day might touch his brush anew. 
The lovers felt the beauty of the scene 
Accorded with the harmony within. 
And locked in the embrace of each, they gazed. 
Till twilight, on the fading skies of eve. 
Hung out her circlet in the pallid heavens. 



THOUGHT 



O thought ! thou fleet-winged herald of the mind, 
Whose tireless pinions compass land and sea ! 

Thine is a spacious empire, unconfined 

By scopes or limits; spreading vast and free. 

O'er Time and Death, the future and the past, — 



152 

A glorioQS portion of infinity, 
'Round which the light of centuries is cast. 

Daughter of Intellect, thy generous light 
Lifts man from Nature's darkness ; elevates 

The human race, and scatters Error's night ; 
Dispenses life, and opens wide the gates 

Of Truth and Knowledge ! Reason's spouse art 
thou. 
Whose scepter sways "earth's multitude of states," 

At thy behest the universe must bow. 

Thou art a scintillation, caught from Him, 
Thy great, sublime Original, who wrought 

The texture of the clouds which 'round Him swim ; 
And from the clods of slumbering Nature, 
brought 

Man into conscious being : — in his breast 
Opened the immaterial realms of Thought, 

And gave him Reason for his chosen guest. 

Hail, gift divine ! from heaven thy splendor came. 
To heaven returns ; — its beams but faintly show 

V/hat light and glory 'round the Godhead flame. 
But dimly seen in creature minds below. 

ThoQ art a link, uniting man with God ; 

The visible with that fair clime, where grov/ 

The trees of life, and fling their sweets abroad. 

There feeding on that fruit ambrosial. Mind 
Becomes matured at once, and sweeps her eye 

O'er all that seemed mysterious, when confined 
In forms corporeal 'neath the hooded sky : 

Expands in that exalted atmosphere, 
'And drinks from Wisdom's fount, that from on 
high 

Drops upon Earth its waters, crystal-clear. 



Philosopher and poet, seer and sage. 

Have felt its droppings in their bosom's shrine : 
By it, in every clime, through every age. 

Thought has been purified, whose light divine 
Enwreathes to-day the universe around 
With beams as luminous as those which shine 
From heaven's abyss, where light and life abound. 

She gauges orbs remote, which silver space. 

And bathes her pinions in the cloudlet's spring ; 

Gazes undazzled on the sun's bright face. 
And rides upon the lightning's fiery wing. 

She lays the unfathomed depths of ocean bare ; 
Talks with the v/inds when loud the tempests 

And ambient as the winds is everywhere. 

She holds communion with the dead, whose lips 
Speak from the lettered page ; and muses o'er 

The urns of those now sealed in Death's eclipse, 
While Memory's hands their vanished forms 
restore ; 

She flashes o'er the electric cables, deep 

Beneath the tossing brine, from shore to shore. 

Grief for the glad, and joy to those that weep. 

O wondrous power ! Thou holdest in thy grasp 
The keys of knowledge, which unlock the fane 

Of ancient Science, in whose ample clasp 
The tomes of buried centuries have lain ; 

Offspring of mental throes, through ages back ; 
The fruit, which hours of midnight labor gain 

For him who treads in Learning's Alpine track. 

Thou on the limner's canvas spread'st the scene 
In all the freshness of creation's dawn : 



154 

Rocks, dripping dew, and woods of waving green, 
A^nd herds of graceful deer, on meadowy lawn. 

Cropping the tender grass, and wild cascades. 
With foamy waters sparkling in the sun. 

Whose smile of gladness mellows groves and glades. 

The lip of eloquence, the smile of wit. 
The brow of genius, all are lit by thee ; 

Mankind in ties of fellowship is knit 

By thy twin children. Faith and Charity. 

Thou mov'st the springs of feeling in the breast. 
Until their waters, struggling to be free. 

Out through the eyes, in bliss or grief, are pressed. 

Thou dost exalt, ennoble, and refine 

Man v/ho exults to feel thy genial sway j^ 

Thou art progressive, and thy beams must shine 
Till future ages catch their kindling ray ; 

And o'er both continents goes up the cry. 

The Truth has conquered, and the world, to-day. 

Is crowned with light and freedom from on high. 



A FOREST SKETCH. 

Here on the bole of this most ancient oak. 
That bourgeons in the sunlight's amber ray, 
I'll rest awhile. The fertile bottom, 'neath. 
Is fragrant with the odoriferous smell 
Of myriad-blooming flowers. From spray to spray. 
The goldfinch glides, and mixes with the jay 
His garrulous warblings. Through the interstices 
Made by the wind among the forest leaves. 
The winding river flashes on my sight. 



155 

Imbowered among these twilight-haunted woods. 

Haply some solitary built his lodge 

Within their verdant alleys, years gone by ; 

And raised his voice, amid their leaf-strewn aisles. 

At morning's prime, and noonday's stilly hour. 

And when the sunset filled the bosomed dale. 

While gazing on the freshness of the scene. 

Robed in the summer's garniture of bloom. 

Yon rill's translucent waters undermine 

The walnut's roots, 'round which their currents 

flow ; 
And lave the giant sycamores, that weave 
Fantastic shadows o'er the unweeded grass 
Which crowns the humid soil. Profound and deep, 
A brooding silence dwells amid this vast. 
Interminable labyrinth of woods ; 
Save when the voices of the winds are heard 
Holding communion with the leaves that roof 
This temple, fashioned by the Invisible ; 
Or when the melodizing of the birds 
Wakes, with its musicry, the echoes, 'round. 

Sometimes the strange quiescence of the place 

Is broken by the plashing of the rain. 

Or ci-ash of thunder, when the storm is out 

In all his eye-shot madness. Now, the sky 

Is lavish of her smiles, and prodigal 

Of golden glimpses which the vision meets, 

As through the wind-sv/ept branches looks the sun. 

In these recesses, where the violet blows. 
Unseen, and gives its flavor to the breeze. 
The brook is wimpled by the mantling vines 
That fling their matted growth across its breast. 
As if to screen it from the light that plays 
14 



156 

Through boughs of quivering ash and rustling birch : 

Spanning it like some causey, lies the trunk 

Of a dismantled elm, enmossed, and left 

To molder in the rains and snows of heaven. 

Here, in this curtained wilderness, I seem 

Like one who treads among the ruined shafts. 

And crumbling plinths of some old city. Lo ! 

The turf, beneath, is crowded with the dead 

Of centuries gone, whose ashes, long ago. 

Have mingled with their mother element. 

These woody Titans which have been o'erthrown 

By angry storms that shake the trembling world, 

Have seen the ages come and pass away. 

The witnesses of generations back. 

Who, haply, in these delitescent wilds. 

Have builded their abodes, and lived and died. 

Naught is remaining now to tell the tale ; 

In silence, from his solitary perch. 

The woodcock flutters through the slumbrous air. 

To wet his bill in the diaphanous brook. 

The woody knolls are pasturage grounds, where erst 

Hath browsed the noble buck, ere driven hence 

By the stern huntsman's unrelenting hand. 

How cool and moist and balmy are these groves. 

Untainted by the suffocating breath 

Of noontide ; — soon the sleeping winds will fan 

These bowery trees, which, park-like, open wide 

In many a pleasing vista, where the eye, 

Delightedlv, may take the forest in. 

Oh none of earth's fair palaces may vie 

In beauty with the splendor of this bright 

And glorious edifice, which Nature's hands 

Have raised as a perpetual sanctuary. 

Where man may kneel and worship Nature's God ! 



157 

Through the stained windows of cathedrals vast, 
Of ancient, Gothic architecture, soft 
And mellowly the light of day may steal ; 
The frescoed dome upswell ; luxurious seats 
Invite to rest ; the deep-toned organ's roll. 
In waves of music, shake the sacred fane. 
And surging clouds of incense float around 
Huge pillars which support the massive frame. 
But here, the sunlight, when the morning dawns. 
Through the rose-colored casements of the east. 
Streams gorgeously upon the velvet sward 
Of glade and upland. Heaven's dome of blue, 
O'erlaid with stars, bends like its beauteous bow. 
O'er arbors fair, which woo the traveler's feet. 
Rich strains are ever floating from the depth 
Of glens and thickets, and the idle breeze 
Comes, perfume-laden, from the teeming vales ; 
Breathing its benediction on the earth. 
And bathing all the skyward-pointing oaks. 
Whose airv columns seem to brush the clouds. 



A PASTORAL SCENE. 



Upon these sunset hills, I rest^beneath 

This breezy poplar's shade, and snufi^the air, 

O'er-burdened with the garden's odorous breathy 
Whose currents dally with my waving hair ; 

Oh how delicious, through the fragrant grass. 

To catch the summer breezes as they pass ! 

Yon gleaming pool, o'er which the rushes lean. 
Ripples around the duck that sails its breast ; 

And yonder farm-house, set in living green. 
Is shot all over by the burning west ; 



158 

Each window blazes in its parting gleam. 
And the tall chimneys glitter in its beam. 

The ripening corn and wheat, beneath me, bend 
In fields which well might glad the harvester ; 

The orchard rows will soon their fruitage send 
To those who wait to feast them on its cheer ; 

The purpling grape-vines cling around their stay. 

And trellised woodbines bloom the livelong day. 

The butterfly, on silken-powdered wings. 
Flutters among the jessamines. The bee 

Sips from the tea-plant, where the blue-bird sings. 
As if his little heart was filled with glee ; 

And o'er the wood-path, whistling as he goes, 

The farm lad plods behind the slow-paced cows. 

The voices of the day at length are mute, 

And shadows settle on the ungarnered grain ; 

The grazing cattle crop the grassy shoot 
That twinkles in the starlight on the plain ; 

And from beneath this roof of verdant leaves, 

I seek the shelter of the farm-house eaves. 



TRUTH 



I love the Truth, for she is heaven-descended ; 

And through the centuries, which have rolled 
away. 
Her bow of promise o'er the earth has bended. 

Beneath the stars, as luminous as they ; 
Until the universe, with radiance splendid. 

Is lit with heaven's efFulgency to-day. 
And from Earth's ransomed millions, floats the song. 
Truth is omnipotent to crush the wrong. 



159 

Her brow is wreathed with a celestial glory ; 

Her eyes are like the lightning's arrowy glance ; 
She comes, a victor, old in song and story. 

Yet new in conquests. Bayonet, sword nor lance 
Can stop her onward progress. Error, hoary 

With age and crime, may bid his hosts advance 
To strike her down, but from the sodden ground 
She'll rise again, with God's own glory crowned. 

Ave ! ever since those words, sublimely thrilling 
The ear of chaos, broke the sleep of years : 

''Let there be light," Truth's sunshine has been 
filling 
Humanity's great heart, until its tears, 

Like Hermon's dew", all silently distilling 

0"er coffined hopes, when Heaven's fair guest 
appears. 

And throws her splendor on Life's wintry gloom. 

Roll off, and lo ! the world is lit with bloom. 

Her's is a conqueror's march ; forever onward. 
Her car of victory wheels in glorious flight ; 

Thrones topple down, and kings, that lead the 
vanguard 
In earth's broad realm, are vanquished by the 
Right : 

Her eagle pinions, ever leaping sunward, 

Earthw'ard the bleeding bands of Error smite ; 

Empires are humbled, and the imperial form 

Of Truth shines brightest in the blackest storm. 

She beams from crimson Calvary, bathed in luster. 
And points to Joseph's empty sepulcher : 

Around the page of Inspiration cluster 

Her choicest buds of promise, fresh and fair; 
14* 



160 

She holds, o'erhead, a star-wrought crown : O trust 
her, 
Frail man ! and she shall render doubly dear 
Thy lot in life, and rainbow all thy woe. 
And through thy soul in streams of joyance flow. 

Deep down into thy gulfs of love unfailing, 

O plunge me. Truth, that I may drink the bliss 

On which Elysium's subjects are regaling 
Within a more resplendent clime than this ! 

Blow on my heart, thy spicy gales, while sailing 
Toward the blue harbor of perpetual peace! 

Give me a draught from Heaven's delicious well. 

That I, its sweetness, to the world may tell ! 

The Powers that be shall into atoms crumble, 
Dvnasties fade, and scepters cease their sway ; 

Kingdoms be rent in twain ; the roar and rumble 
Of War's dread thunder, echoing, melt away ; 

The columns of the universe shall tumble, 
Obedient to the mandates of Decay ; 

But Truth, with splendor, grander than the sun. 

Through God's eternity, shall still live on. 

Ah ves ! I see with John's prophetic vision 
The grandeur of the thousand years to be ; 

Already, from the skirts of the Elysian, 
Is sifted some of its strange brilliancy. 

The time draws nigh, when on her gracious mission. 
Peace, seraph-tongued, shall speak from sea to sea ; 

And Hate shall die, and Error faint and fall. 

And Truth's unbounded glory cover all. 



161 



THE TRUE HERO. 

He comes — with nodding plumes and saber sheathed. 
Through surging multitudes that shake the air 

With songs of triumph from their lips out-breathed ; 
Soul-stirring music greets him on his way. 
And floral gifts are lavished by the fair. 

Who crowd the o'er-looking balconies, enwreathed 
With rarest garlands, beautiful as they. 

What means this grand ovation! why these strains 
Of melody, that rhapsodize the soul ! 

A shower of smiles and salutations rains 

From Beauty's flashing eye, and jeweled hand. 
Upon the bearded warrior, and the roll 

Of belching cannon, o'er the distant plains. 
Thunders its jubilee through all the land. 

This is a conqueror. He has come from far — 

His armies, underneath the lurid sky. 
Have marched — led on by victory's gleaming star — 

To signal conquests over vanquished foes ; 

The flames, of cities sacked, have leaped on high 
Behind his glittering cohorts, as the war 

Was pushed by him to a victorious close. 

His veteran hosts have piled, beside their chief. 
The slaughtered forces of the enemy. 

And brought a humbled monarch into grief; 
And 'mid a fiery rain of shot and shell. 
In solid phalanx, charged, triumphantly. 

Upon the yielding adversary ; brief 
The conflict, ere a ruined Empire fell. 



162 

But ah ! each smoking field of blood sent up 

A cry, which smote the ear of heaven's great King, 

From hearts that drank the dregs of Sorrow's cup. 
And wailed above the ashes of their slain. 
Who fell amid the battle's heat and ring. 

And shed their crimson life's blood, drop by drop. 
To aggrandize a victor's selfish reign. 

A conqueror is he ? See yon reeking plain ! 

There where the shout of carnage heavenward 
rolled. 
The thousands, smitten 'ncath Death's iron rain. 

Rise up, and point their gory hands, and cry. 

Amid this jocund multitude : "Behold ! 
Our blood has stamped your chieftain with its stain ; 

Avenge it, O just Ruler of the sky !" 

Yes! he has conquered ; but ah me ! the hearts 
That bleed to-day, the eyes that weep, the graves 

Fresh made, throughout the city's crowded marts. 
And 'mid the country's leafy silence, breathe 
A curse on him who bade the crimson waves 

Of bloodshed roll, and barbed Death's winged darts. 
Unfading chaplets 'round his hrow to wreathe. 

Would you behold a greater far than he, 

Mark, yonder man, from whose benignant face 

Love seems to emanate. He steps as free 
As if the universe were his, and yet. 
He moves with such an unassuming grace. 

That none can question the humility. 
Which, jewel-like, within his soul is set. 

No trumpet's clarion sings his loud acclaim ; 

No flags are fluttering o'er him in the breeze ; 
No iovous crowds reverberate his name ; 



16 



No arches, flower-gilt, gleam above his head ; 
Yet he is cheered by angel symphonies ; 
Love waves her banner over him ; his fame 

Is warbled through Heaven's dome, beyond him 
spread. 

His hands have never yet unsheathed the sword ; 

No sanguinary fields, made rich with blood. 
Speak of his martial prowess ; for the sward. 

He treads, is virgin of his kinsmen's gore. 

Loud calling for the avenging bolts of God 
To strike the murderer down ! No coffers, stored 

With wealth, ill-gained, their treasures 'round 
him pour. 

Yet d e em hgs^B^^a conqueror, for there treads 
No greater, underneath God's glittering sun : 

Where'er the cause of his dear Master leads. 
He gives his colors to the guiltless wind. 
And in the strength of Calvary's stricken one. 

Endeavors, though he faints, and falls, and bleeds. 
To rally, 'neath his standard, all mankind. 

Long since, he vanquished that usurper. Self; 

He stormed the ancient citadel of Pride ; 
He captive led that fascinating elf. 

The creature, who had ruled his heart so long ; 

He chose eternal Wisdom for his bride. 
And with her aid, those tyrants, gain and pelf. 

He made his slaves, to help him fight the wrong. 

Before the patience which sublimes 4iis life. 

Hate bites the dust, and Passion's numerous train. 
Anger and Envy, Prejudice and Strife, 



164 

Are put to rout, and Love asserts her sway ; 
And Hope, unchilled by Sorrow's pelting rain. 
Hangs out, above the clotldy present, rife 

With mists and storms, her bow in heaven's 
clear day. 

Here is the hero for you ; one whose faith 

In God's eternal truth, unsullied, shines 
Grandly in life, more glorious still in death. 

And moves the arm of Him that shaped the 
spheres. 

To smite his every enemy, whose shrines 
Smoke with false sacrifices, till the wreath 

Of final conquest, from on high, he bears. 

He does not fight for naught ; a crown is his, 
Which sparkles in God's treasury for him. 

A gem-bright palace, bathed in heaven's own bliss. 
Awaits its conquering guest. Its golden sides 
Are flanked by fountains, fed from that pure 
stream. 

Whose mirroring waters, banks of emerald kiss, 
Beieweling their crystal-gleaming tides. 

Art thou that hero ! O lift up thy lids, — 

Beneath whose fringes shines the light of Truth, — 

To thy possessions, 'mid the flowery meads 
Of paradise ! More firmly grasp thy sword. 
And with the zeal of thy God-given youth. 

Slay Sin, smite Error, and with valiant deeds. 
Build, for thyself, a temple to the Lord. 

What though the shock and shout of battle rive 
Thy fainting heart. O look ! the angels crowd 

The gates of pearl. Awaiting thee, they give 
Their melodv, to eternize thy name. 



165 

To heaven's soft winds. Ere long, thou shalt 
receive 
Thy sparkling crown from Him who overcame. 

Ah then, thy glory shall more splendid be 
Than all the gaudy pomp that ever graced 

Earth's grandest conqueror. Heaven's effulgency 
Shall shower upon thee, and angelic throngs. 
Up the celestial stairway, toward a feast 

Of love, outspread forever, beckon thee. 

While heaven's glad rafters shake within rheir 
songs. 



THE LOVER'S RETREAT, 

The moon is at its full to-night, 

And by yon mansion's gleaming Vv'alls, 

Beneath its soft and silken light, 
A fountain's plashing crystal falls. 

Whose tinkling waters over-brim 

Their marble's gayly-silvered rim. 

The mulberry sighs anear us, love ; 

The grape-vines wed, with leaf and stem 
Entwining, as they weave, above, 

A canopy to curtain them 
Who tread the garden's pebbled walk. 
And list the breeze's idle talk. 

From roof to marbled base is flung 

The brilliance of the lights that gleam 

In yon bright mansion, where the song 
Out-floats in many a gushing stream 

Of melody, and laughter's tone 

Breaks from the picture-hung saloon. 



166 

O love', tor o»e brief, pleasant hour. 

From jest, and wine, and mirth, and song, 

We've stolen to this sequestered bower. 
To breathe its star-gilt leaves among, — 

With hands enclasped, and cheek impressed, — 

The language of each glowing breast. 

Ah well ! you thought I did prefer 
Another, as the wine went round ; 

And that my heart was linked to her. 

While Love, o'er each, his arms had wound ! 

Nay, darling, from thy sweetest lip. 

My own the dew of love would sip. 

Dost love me, my own little maid. 
With bluest eye, and softest hair: 

Full well I know it, as I read 

The sparkles which thy glances bear. 

O press me to thy own true heart ! 

But once — and then we must depart. 

Hark ! they are calling to us ; how 
The echoes glide, from grot to grot ; — 

We're coming ! and the trees that bow 
Their coronals above the spot 

We tread, fling back the answering call 

To those who throng the festival. 



167 ^ 

LINES ON A COQUETTE. 

By L. Henck. 

Can Beauty linger where Deceit 

Has reared her empire in the mind ; 

And exercise her charms to cheat, — 
The unsuspecting heart to blind r 

Ah sure, tis cruel thus to deal 

With holiest feelings entertained ! 

First every fond affection steal. 

Then leave them droop and die enchained, 

Though Beauty dwell where Folly reigns. 
Where grace seems ever to reside, 

O shun her fairy silken chains ; — 
To wound affection is her pride. 

Trust not the most enchanting charm 

Which false ones weave for thy disgrace, 

So shall each wile, devoid of harm. 
But spread the blush on Beauty's face. 



AUTUMNAL MUSINGS. 
By Joseph H. Henck. 

The golden leaves are dropping fast 
On woodland path and gay parterre ; 

And sadly moans the autumnal blast 
Around the fast departing year. 
15 



168 

O withered leaves! ye emblems are 
Of hopes, once bright, forever fled ; 

O autumn blasts ! what thoughts ye stir 
Of fair and loved ones, cold and dead. 

But jovous spring again shall breathe. 
And flower and leaf shall live once more 

But ah ! the loved o'er whom we grieve, 
Her genial breath can ne'er restore. 

Hush thy repinings, child of dust. 

Religion's power doth reach the tomb ; 

In her sure promise place thy trust. 

The grave shall not thy loved consume! 

Her breath shall wake the sleeping dead. 
And bid the slumberer's form arise, — 

Where autumn leaves are never spread, — 
To bloom immortal in the skies.* 



TO A DEPARTED ONE. 
By Joseph H. Henck, 

Safe — far beyond the reach of pain and death. 
Angel of light ! thy sufferings are o'er ! 

'Round thy fair brow the Savior twines a wreath, 
A fadeless wreath of life foreverm.ore. 

Home in the glory-land, thou'st ceased to weep. 
And tuned thy harp to holiest, gladdest song ; 

No grief its vigils there may ever keep ; 
No sorrows to that brighter world belong. 

^ The last verse was subjoined by the Author. 



169 

Ah ! ours is still to weep the lovely dead ; 

In secret still we shed the bitter tear ; 
A Savior wept o'er Friendship's narrow bed. 

Rude were the breast that sighs not o'er the bier. 

Rest, sacred relics, 'neath the mossy sod! 

Earth guard the dust our hearts so richly prize ! 
Till summoned by her Father and her God, 

We greet her kindred spirit in the skies. 



The last three poems have been inserted by the author, 
because he deems them of sufficient merit to be entitled to a 
place in this, or any similar collection of poems ever issued 
from the press. 



